“Common Types of Melancholy”—fiction from Shalaw Habiba
The Markaz Review presents a rare piece of prose in English translation from Kurdish writer Shalaw Habiba, translated by Savan Abdulrahman.
Shalaw Habiba
Shalaw Habiba is a contemporary Kurdish author, born in the 1980s, whose poetry was recently published in Spanish by Abisinia Review in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has been publishing his writings for several years. Among his works is the collection of poems Someone Passed Here. He also translates from Persian. He lives in Germany.
Savan Abdulrahman Ahmed is the editor-in-chief at DidiMn, a Kurdish cultural website. She also works as research assistant at CGDS, the American University in Iraq. As a literary translator, Ahmed has worked in consultation with the director of Zheen Archive to select and translate Piramerd’s selected prose and poetry into English. There, she also worked in bringing fifteen major Kurdish classical poets of the 19th century into English which will be published as an anthology of Kurdish poetry. Her translated works have appeared in M—Dash, Mask Magazine, and The Militant. DidiMn has published Ahmed’s book Translation: An Act More Than Changing Words, and May68 Youth Group has published her translated book Universities in a Neoliberal World.