Mem û Zîn and the classics of Kurdish literature
A short tour of Kurdish literature, from Ehmedê Xanî’s love story Mem û Zîn to the poets and novelists who carried Kurdish writing into the modern age.
Kurdish literature is far older than many people expect. For centuries, dengbêj singers carried long sung stories from village to village, while poets trained in religious schools wrote verse in Kurmancî (Kurmanji), Soranî (Sorani) and Hewramî (Gorani).
This short tour starts with the most famous Kurdish book of all, Mem û Zîn, and walks forward to the poets and novelists of the 20th century. Along the way you will pick up a few Kurdish words for books and poems.
Mem û Zîn, the great Kurdish love story
Mem û Zîn (“Mem and Zîn”) is a love story in verse by the poet Ehmedê Xanî, completed in 1692. It runs to about 2,650 couplets in Kurmancî and is the best-loved classic of Kurdish literature. It is often called the national epic of the Kurds.
The story is set in Cizîr (Cizre), once the capital of the Botan principality. Mem, a young man of the town, meets Zîn, a young woman of the ruling family, at the spring festival of Newroz, and the two fall in love.
A jealous rival named Bekir plots against them, and the lovers are kept apart. Mem dies, and Zîn dies of grief at his grave. Bekir is buried beside them, and a thorn bush grows from his grave, standing between the lovers even in death.
Xanî did not invent the plot. He built his poem on Memê Alan, a folk tale that dengbêj singers had sung for generations:
Çîrokek kevn چیرۆکێکی کۆن An old story
In Cizîr, a tomb that people link to Mem and Zîn still draws visitors today.
All three spellings name the same book: the little word û simply means “and”. You will also see the poet’s name written the English way, Ahmad Khani.
Who was Ehmedê Xanî?
Ehmedê Xanî (Ahmad Khani) was born in 1650 or 1651 in the Hakkari region. He spent much of his life in Bayazid, today’s Doğubayazıt, and died there in 1707.
Like many scholars of his time, he knew Arabic and Persian well, yet he chose Kurmancî for his masterpiece. He also cared about teaching children: around 1683 he wrote Nûbihara Biçûkan (“the children’s spring”), a small rhyming Arabic–Kurdish word list for young Kurdish learners.
Before Xanî: Cizîrî and Feqiyê Teyran
Xanî followed in the footsteps of earlier poets. The most admired is Melayê Cizîrî (about 1570–1640), a scholar from Cizîr, the same town where Mem û Zîn is set. His dîwan (collected poems) holds more than a hundred poems of mystical love and spiritual longing.
Cizîrî knew Arabic and Persian too, but he wrote his poems in Kurmancî. Later poets, Xanî among them, admired him and followed his lead, so he is often seen as the founder of a school of Kurmancî poetry.
Helbest dilê min vedike شیعر دڵم دەکاتەوە Poetry opens my heart
Feqiyê Teyran was born around 1590 in Miks, in the Hakkari region, with the name Mîr Mihemed. His pen name means roughly “student of the birds”, and tradition says he studied with Cizîrî.
He wrote in plain language and drew on folk tales, and many of his poems lived on in Kurdish folk song. His best-known work, Zembîlfiroş (“the basket seller”), is a love story that singers still perform. He also retold the Sufi tale of Şêxê Sen’an.
Exact birth and death years were not always recorded for poets who lived centuries ago, and old manuscripts often count years in the Islamic calendar. Sources can disagree by a few years, so we write “about” or “around” where they do.
Classic poets in Soranî and Hewramî
Kurmancî was not the only literary dialect. In the 19th century, poets such as Nalî and Hacî Qadirê Koyî turned Soranî into a language of fine poetry, while Hewramî had a poetic tradition of its own.
Nalî (born around 1800) came from the Sulaymaniyah region and died in Istanbul. He is often named as the first poet to write a full dîwan in Soranî, and his poems of love and mysticism helped make Soranî a literary language.
Mewlewî (Mewlewî Tawegozî, 1806–1882) wrote his Kurdish poems mainly in Hewramî. A Sufi scholar, he is loved for his mystical poems and for moving laments for his late wife. Our guide to Hewramî explains more about this dialect.
Hacî Qadirê Koyî (1817–1897) grew up in Koya and died in Istanbul. His poems carry one clear message: Kurds should read and write in their own language and have Kurdish books and newspapers. Why, he asked, should Kurdish count for less than Persian?
Modern voices of the 20th century
In the 20th century, poets began to break the old rules of metre and rhyme. Abdulla Goran (1904–1962), from Halabja, is often called the father of modern Kurdish poetry: he left the classical Arabic–Persian metre behind and brought back the syllable-counting rhythm of Kurdish folk verse.
Cegerxwîn (also spelled Cigerxwîn, 1903–1984) was born Şêxmûs Hesen in Hesar, near Batman, and later made his home in Qamişlo (Qamishli) in Syria. His pen name means “bleeding liver”, an image of deep feeling. He published eight books of poetry in Kurmancî and also wrote about the Kurdish language itself.
Şêrko Bêkes (Sherko Bekas, 1940–2013) was born in Sulaymaniyah, the son of the poet Fayeq Bêkes. In the early 1970s he helped start the Rûwange (“vision”) movement, which freed Kurdish poetry from strict rhyme and opened it to new forms. His poems have been translated into many languages, and in 1987 he received the Tucholsky Prize in Sweden.
Each of these poets found a voice of their own:
Her nivîskarê şêwazek bêhempa heye /her niˈviskarɛ ʃewaˈzek behɛmˈpa hɛˈjɛ/ هەر نووسەرێک شێوازێکی تایبەتی هەیە Each writer has a unique style
The Kurdish novel
Poetry came first, and the novel arrived much later. The book often called the first Kurdish novel is Şivanê Kurmanca (“The Kurdish Shepherd”) by Erebê Şemo, a Kurdish writer in Soviet Armenia. It came out in the 1930s and draws on his own youth as a shepherd.
Erebê Şemo also helped design an early Latin alphabet for Kurdish. You can read that story in our history of the Kurdish alphabet.
One of the writers who did most to shape the modern Kurmancî novel is Mehmed Uzun (1953–2007). Born in Siverek, he lived in Sweden for almost thirty years and wrote his novels in Kurmancî, beginning with Tu (“You”) in the mid-1980s.
His books include Siya Evînê (“The Shadow of Love”) and Rojek ji rojên Evdalê Zeynikê (“One of the Days of Evdalê Zeynikê”), about a celebrated dengbêj of the 19th century. He wove spoken Kurdish, old stories and the classics into a rich literary language.
Words for book lovers
Want to talk about books in Kurdish? These words come from the ZimanGo course, most of them from the advanced Arts & Culture lessons, in both Kurmancî and Soranî.
| Kurmancî | Soranî | English |
|---|---|---|
| wêje | ئەدەب | literature |
| helbest | شیعر | poem |
| roman | ڕۆمان | novel |
| nivîskar | نووسەر | writer |
| pirtûk | پەرتووک | book |
| evîn | عەشق | love |
| stran | گۆرانی | song |
The two dialects often pick different words here. A poem is helbest in Kurmancî. In Soranî it is شیعر.
With these words you can already say something about your reading:
Ez romaneke xweş dixwînim /ɛz romaˈnɛkɛ xwɛʃ dɪxˈwinɪm/ ڕۆمانێکی جوان دەخوێنمەوە I read a beautiful novel
Start small: a single line of Cizîrî, Nalî or Cegerxwîn, read slowly and aloud, is a lovely way into the language. Every poem you understand brings you closer to the stories Kurds have told for centuries.
Questions people ask
What is Mem û Zîn about?
Mem û Zîn is a tragic love story in Kurmancî verse. Mem and Zîn fall in love in Cizîr, but a jealous rival keeps them apart, and both die without ever marrying.
Who wrote Mem û Zîn?
The Kurdish poet Ehmedê Xanî (Ahmad Khani, 1650/51–1707) completed it in 1692. He based it on Memê Alan, a folk tale sung by dengbêj singers.
Who are the most famous Kurdish poets?
Among the classics are Melayê Cizîrî, Feqiyê Teyran and Ehmedê Xanî in Kurmancî, Nalî and Hacî Qadirê Koyî in Soranî, and Mewlewî in Hewramî. Well-known modern poets include Abdulla Goran, Cegerxwîn and Şêrko Bêkes.
What was the first Kurdish novel?
Şivanê Kurmanca (“The Kurdish Shepherd”) by Erebê Şemo, a Kurdish writer in Soviet Armenia, came out in the 1930s and is often called the first Kurdish novel.
