Books about Kurdish from Amazon.com

In a remote and dusty corner of the world, forgotten for nearly three thousand years, lived an ancient community of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic—the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers, humble peddlers and rugged loggers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.

In the 1950s, after the founding of the state of Israel, Yona and his family emigrated there with the mass exodus of 120,000 Jews from Iraq—one of the world's largest and least-known diasporas. Almost overnight, the Kurdish Jews' exotic culture and language were doomed to extinction. Yona, who became an esteemed professor at UCLA, dedicated his career to preserving his people's traditions. But to his first-generation American son Ariel, Yona was a reminder of a strange immigrant heritage on which he had turned his back—until he had a son of his own.

My Father's Paradise is Ariel Sabar's quest to reconcile present and past. As father and son travel together to today's postwar Iraq to find what's left of Yona's birthplace, Ariel brings to life the ancient town of Zakho, telling his family's story and discovering his own role in this sweeping saga. What he finds in the Sephardic Jews' millennia-long survival in Islamic lands is an improbable story of tolerance and hope.

Populated by Kurdish chieftains, trailblazing linguists, Arab nomads, devout believers—marvelous characters all— this intimate yet powerful book uncovers the vanished history of a place that is now at the very center of the world's attention..
Price: $17.13 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Robert Brenneman provides a razor-sharp awareness of the Kurds' roots in the Middle East as well as their massive urban migration and the resulting cultural upheaval Based on long-term research, this richly layered ethnography takes readers on a journey from the mountains of Ararat, the alleged resting place of Noah's Ark, to urban environments in a megalopolis like Istanbul, Turkey. Brenneman, who lived among the Kurds in both Iraq and Turkey, conducted fieldwork in such places as refugee camps, destroyed mountain villages, and tea gardens in Istanbul. He examines core and changing aspects of Kurdish culture, including human rights, ethnic identity, women's roles, family and community, religious practices, and the transition from oral tradition to literacy. In addition to providing insight into the worldview of the Kurdish people from antiquity to current events, the author points to key lessons that can be drawn from the ongoing dilemmas they face..
Price: $13.75 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In this incredible true love story, bestselling author Jean Sasson shares Joanna al-Askari's personal journey of fear and fortitude through a Baghdad childhood and life as a Kurdish freedom fighter during the Iran-Iraq War. Inspiring and unforgettable, Love in a Torn Land shares Joanna's passionate and unflagging determination to survive and fight—for love, life, and the freedom of her beloved Kurdistan..
Price: $3.91 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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"It’s an achievement of Blood and Belief that despite the bloodletting, Marcus still generates empathy—not for the murderous Ocalan, but for the desperate Kurds who joined the PKK revolution feeling they had nowhere else to turn."
—The Washington Post Book World

"Blood and Belief gives meaning and context to the grinding guerrilla war that claimed tens of thousands of livesÂ…"
—Boston Globe

”Blood and Belief offers unusual insight into the rebels' shadowy universe and, by extension, into Turkey's festering Kurdish problem. . . . [A] scholarly, gripping account.”
—The Economist

“Marcus has unequalled knowledge of the PKK and her book will be essential reading for all who are interested in the topic. Blood and Belief comes out at an important moment when fate of the Kurds is becoming more and more important to the future of the Middle East.”
—Patrick Cockburn, author of The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq

“Aliza Marcus has written the kind of book that only a journalist who has covered conflict on the ground could write. She has brought her superb eye for detail and her deep knowledge of history of the region to the task of understanding the violent and painful journey of the Kurds. Blood and Belief is necessary reading for anyone who seeks to understand all of the moving parts of the Middle East today.”
—Charles M. Sennott, author of The Body and the Blood: The Middle East's Vanishing Christians and the Possibility for Peace

“Marcus carefully chronicles the scarcely believable saga of long repressed, but resurgent Kurdish identity in Turkey and the ongoing quarter century revolt of the PKK inspired by Abdullah Ocalan, one of the Third World's more paranoid contemporary nationalist fountainheads. This is the astounding tale of a ruthless hard scrabble beneficiary of the Turkish RepublicÂ’s liberal education system who mounted the twentieth centuryÂ’s longest challenge to AnkaraÂ’s authority and sent tens of thousands of Kurds — and Turks — to their deaths from the safety of a foreign sanctuary. Marcus dissects fatal Kurdish and Turkish stubbornness which helped perpetuate this sputtering revolt despite OcalanÂ’s manifest errors, his craven repudiation of the PKK objectives once in Turkish captivity and mass desertions by true believers disillusioned by his transparent efforts to save his neck.”
—Jonathan Randal, author of Osama: The Making of a Terrorist

"This is a very good, original work that will add greatly to our understanding of the Kurdish national movement and Kurdish politics. It is an important contribution to an understanding of contemporary Kurdish history and of the Kurdish question in general. I know of no book like it."
—Keith Hitchins, editor, The Journal of Kurdish Studies

The Kurds, who number some 28 million people in the Middle East, have no country they can call their own. Long ignored by the West, Kurds are now highly visible actors on the world's political stage. More than half live in Turkey, where the Kurdish struggle has gained new strength and attention since the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq.

Essential to understanding modern-day Kurds--and their continuing demands for an independent state--is understanding the PKK, the Kurdistan WorkersÂ’ Party. A guerilla force that was founded in 1978 by a small group of ex-Turkish university students, the PKK radicalized the Kurdish national movement in Turkey, becoming a tightly organized, well-armed fighting force of some 15,000, with a 50,000-member civilian militia in Turkey and tens of thousands of active backers in Europe. Under the leadership of Abdullah Ocalan, the war the PKK waged in Turkey through 1999 left nearly 40,000 people dead and drew in the neighboring states of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, all of whom sought to use the PKK for their own purposes. Since 2004, emboldened by the Iraqi Kurds, who now have established an autonomous Kurdish state in the northernmost reaches of Iraq, the PKK has again turned to violence to meet its objectives.

Blood and Belief combines reportage and scholarship to give the first in-depth account of the PKK. Aliza Marcus, one of the first Western reporters to meet with PKK rebels, wrote about their war for many years for a variety of prominent publications before being put on trial in Turkey for her reporting. Based on her interviews with PKK rebels and their supporters and opponents throughout the world--including the Palestinians who trained them, the intelligence services that tracked them, and the dissidents who tried to break them up--Marcus provides an in-depth account of this influential radical group.

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Price: $28.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

ISBN Number: 0977187349Title: The Crimson FieldAuthor: Rosie Malek-YonanBinding: HardcoverPublication date: 2005Publisher: Pearlida.
Price: $29.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The largest ethnic group without their own nation-state, there are an estimated 30-40 million Kurds living throughout the world today. The majority live in Kurdistan, a region stretching over parts of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. As a minority in these countries, the Kurds have struggled for independence throughout history and into recent times and have often been oppressed, persecuted and deported from their land. The purpose of this volume is to introduce readers to the Kurdish people, their cultural traditions and their stories. This unique collection, the first of its kind in English, features tales collected first-hand by the author during several years of travel to the Kurdish region of Turkey. A Fire In My Heart serves as a reference and program resource for educators and librarians, introducing students and the public to this ancient culture. The book is especially suited to those working with Middle Eastern children and their families in the US and abroad. From the Kurdish Cinderella story, "Fatima," and humorous animal tales to stories based on legendary figures, for example the Herculean Rusteme Zal, these thirty-three tales from the varied regions of Kurdistan and the four major dialects are a wonderful resource for storytellers, folklorists and scholars. After seven years recording Kurdish tellers and traveling to remote mountain villages the author provides a valuable collection of previously unpublished tales, traditional recipes and games. The book is augmented by stories translated and adapted from small tale collections in Kurdish, as well as rare color photos from Iraqi-Kurdistan in 1955 and recent photos of village life. Background information on the Kurdish people, their history, land and customs is provided. All levels..
Price: $37.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A seminal work in the field of Kurdish studies, Wadie Jwaideh's study, published for the first time, presents a detailed analysis of the early phases of Kurdish nationalism and offers a framework in which to understand the movement's later development.

Following Wadie Jwaideh's dissertation defense, his doctoral chairman took aside Jwaideh's wife, Alice, and asked her to submit the work for publication without Wadie's permission, believing that Wadie's penchant for perfection would postpone its publication indefinitely. The thesis was never published during Jwaideh's lifetime, but its fame spread by word of mouth, and many scholars have recognized its importance not only as a study of the earlier phases of Kurdish nationalism but also as a framework for understanding later developments. Now forty years later, the work continues to stand as a classic, referenced by some of the most renowned scholars in the field. Its publication will permit it to reach a greater audience and to contribute more fully to the understanding and appreciation of this geopolitical and cultural movement.

Jwaideh was born in Basra, in southern Iraq into an Arabic-speaking, Christian family who later moved to Baghdad. Because of his intimate knowledge of the land and its people, Jwaideh developed a shrewd insight into Kurdish society and politics. He convincingly demonstrates the rich historical roots of the Kurdish national movement, offering a new interpretation to the Kurdish political circumstance , which is often viewed as a series of isolated events triggered by economic upheaval or political dissatisfaction. This complex and layered history of the Kurdish nationalist movement offers a valuable perspective from which to view the current conditions in Iraq. Jwaideh's sensitive and prescient treatment of this region gives his study great contemporary relevance..
Price: $27.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Acclaimed by Kurdish Academics, the Wallenberg, Kurdish English - English Kurdish Sorani dictionary has led the way in bilingual lexicography. The first ever Kurdish dictionary to be entirely compiled based on the statistical evidence of real language; both written and spoken it is a reliable dictionary for both English and Kurdish speakers. The compiler Michael Goddard has given the definitions of words in the Arabic script and also for those who cannot read this script in Romanized English. Language is now studied in the context of its culture, so there is a brand-new introduction giving lively and useful information on life in the Kurdish-speaking world - Sections discuss Kurdish, History Art and Culture, and the Kurdish struggle for nationhood. Portable, compact, and yet affordable for a dictionary in its Class, the Wallenberg Kurdish Dictionary is ideal for school, the office, and lower university level. Authoritative and up to date and now in its second edition, the dictionary covers the language as never before. Words are tools for life and the Wallenberg dictionaries make them work for you..
Price: $35.09 [Notify me when price goes down.]