Jiyar Homer Translator & Editor

Dilawar Karadaghi (دلاوەر قەرەداغی) is a Kurdish poet, translator, essayist, playwright and theatre director. Born in the city of Slemani, in southern Kurdistan, in 1963, he graduated in drama at the Baghdad University College of Fine Arts in 1986. He started writing poetry in 1982 when he was 19 years old. After the Iraq-Iran war he went into exile in Iran for two years, then moved to Sweden in 1999. Karadaghi is one of the most important contemporary Kurdish poets, having published 10 collections of poems. He has been nominated for major poetry awards, including being shortlisted for the 2020 American Pushcart Prize. His poetry was translated into Arabic and published in Syria in 2000, receiving a great deal of attention in the Arabic-speaking world. His work has been translated into English, French, Swedish, Arabic, Persian and Spanish and readings of his poetry have been held in Kurdistan, the UK, Sweden and Iran. Jiyar Homer is a translator and editor from Kurdistan. He is a member of Kashkul, the Centre for Arts and Culture at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), and serves as an editor for the literary magazine Îlyan. He speaks Kurdish, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Persian. His translations have appeared in over 30 countries in the publications World Literature Today, Literary Hub, Your Impossible Voice, Periódico de Poesía, Círculo de Poesía, Buenos Aires Poetry, Revista POESIA. His book-length works include translations of Juan Carlos Onetti’s El Pozo, Farhad Pirbal’s The Potato Eaters and Refugiado Número 33.333, Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s La Ciudad de Vapor as well as Sherzad Hassan’s The Fortress and My Father’s Dogs. He is a member of Kurdish PEN. Mike Baynham is a translator and poet from Otley, West Yorkshire UK. His PhD was in sociolinguistics and he is an emeritus professor at the University of Leeds. In retirement he has returned to poetry translation, translating mainly from Spanish, occasionally from Arabic and Persian. His translations have been published in a number of publications, including Artrage, Dawn Hunters, Las Flechas de Artemis, Transference. He is currently collaborating with the Moroccan zejal poet Adil Latefi on translations of his poetry, and with the Kurdish Syrian poet, Ceger Hillo. His translation of a poem by the iconic modernist Persian poet Sohrab Sepehri was awarded a commendation in the 2022 Stephen Spender poetry translation prize. His translation of the Moroccan zejal poet Adil Latefi was awarded 2nd prize in the 2023 Stephen Spender. A self-confessed language glutton, he speaks French, Spanish and Italian fluently and has been a student of Arabic for most of his adult life. He is currently trying to get a basic understanding of Kurdish while working with Jiyar Homer. In his other life as a sociolinguist he has published a book with Tong King Lee on multilingualism and translation, Translation and Translanguaging (Routledge, 2018).