the past and the present of book publishing in kurdish language in ...

Almost none of these writers spoke Turkish before they started school.Contemporary writers grew up under the conditions of a banned mothertongue without the opportunity to study it. That is why most of them write intwo languages – Kurdish and Turkish. Some of them have even translatedthe books they had written in Turkish and published them in Kurdish.An interesting outcome of the oppression and bans is the use ofpseudonyms. At least one third of the Kurdish writers in Turkey usepseudonyms. There are various reasons for that. One of them is the risk ofrecognition by officials and security forces. Some of the writers usepseudonyms because they work at state institutions and find it risky toreveal their names.Sometimes a writer uses different pseudonyms in order to provide morenames to sign the articles in newspapers and magazines. For example,instead of writing three or four articles signed by the same name in any oneissue, the writer uses a different pseudonym for each article.Another reason authors use pseudonyms is to sign their works withKurdish names instead of their real names of Arabic or Turkish origin. A fewKurdish writers living in Europe have changed their names to European oneslike Fred Elifson and Jean-Claude Hussais.Some writers use more than one pseudonym. The true identity of some ofthe pseudonyms used by Kurdish writers in the past remains unsolved tothis day.Due to the problems listed above, books of Kurdish writers can not bedistributed widely to sell well. That is why published books do not ensureenough profit. There are no Kurdish writers in Northern Kurdistan who makea living from books. With a few exceptions no writer has ever been paidroyalties or a fee for the Kurdish books he has written because publisherssay these books can not even cover printing costs. Then why do these peoplewrite in spite of all the difficulties and risks?It is not easy to pinpoint why a writer writes or what the factors andmotives that nourish and effect his writing are. Unraveling the reasons forwriting is difficult even for the writer himself but one can say that mostKurdish authors write for idealistic reasons, not for profit. I think there areseveral reasons for writing and no doubt these vary from writer to writer.Writing in Kurdish means standing up for your identity, for some writers it isa matter of honor (32).Most of the writers responding to the questionnaire say that writing inKurdish is a patriotic duty. I believe this alone can not adequately explainwhy writers write. People believe that expressing emotions and thoughts in12