Jordan Elgrably

Kobra Banehi, also known as Kasnazani, was born in 1966 in the city of Baneh, in East Kurdistan (Iran). She narrated her story as a refugee in Germany, which was written down by Hatau and Paulien Bakker. Kobra lived in Baneh until 1978, when she moved to the city of Saqez. She studied up to the ninth grade, after which she was expelled from school.

Jordan Elgrably is an American, French and Moroccan writer and translator whose stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in many anthologies and reviews, including Apulée, Salmagundi, and the Paris Review. Editor-in-chief and founder of The Markaz Review, he is the cofounder and former director of the Levantine Cultural Center/The Markaz in Los Angeles (2001–2020). He is the editor of Stories From the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction (City Lights, 2024), and co-editor with Malu Halasa of Sumūd: a New Palestinian Reader (Seven Stories, 2025), Based in Montpellier, France and California, he tweets @JordanElgrably.