Life for Us

by Choman Hardi

Choman Hardi was born in Iraqi Kurdistan just before her family fled to Iran. She returned home at the age of five, but when she was 14 the Kurds were attacked with chemical weapons, and her family were forced back into exile. Her poems chart lives of displacement and terror, repression and the subjugation of women, family love, flight and survival. Life for Us is a book of great warmth and passion, which explores both the struggle of a people not represented on the world map and the pains of exile. It shows the human spirit triumphing over adversity. Intertwining political and personal struggle in a quirky, sometimes humorous way, Choman Hardi’s poems draw upon dual memories – like fireworks and gunfire – as well as different realities for different the father’s political struggle and loss of books, the mother’s silent labour and weeping for others. Life for Us (2004) was Choman Hardi’s ?rst English collection, and was followed by Considering the Women (2015), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

Genres: Poetry

66 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2005

About the author

Choman Hardi was born in Sulaimani, Kurdistan, and lived in Iraq and Iran before seeking asylum in the UK in 1993. She was educated in the universities of Oxford (BA, Philosophy and psychology), London (MA, Philosophy) and Kent (PhD, Mental health). She was awarded a scholarship from the Leverhulme Trust to carry out her post-doctoral research about women survivors of genocide in Kurdistan- Iraq. The resulting book, Gendered Experiences of Genocide: Anfal Survivors in Kurdistan-Iraq (Ashgate, 2011), was chosen by the Yankee Book Peddler as a UK Core Title.

Hardi has published collections of poetry in Kurdish and English

Reviews

[Goda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to know more about the Iraqi Kurdish literature but not many books are available in English. So I started reading poetry. I really liked Choman Hardi's book. It is written in a very simple language, but it is perfect in expressing the themes of Kurdish statelessness, displacement, exile. Nonetheless, it stays very intimate and personal. Just consider this poem:

My children

I can hear them talking, my children,
fluent English and broken Kurdish.

And whenever I disagree with them,
they will comfort each other by saying:
Don’t worry about mum, she’s Kurdish.

Will I be the foreigner in my own home?

[Azad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice and readable poems by Choman Hardi who is a prolific writer and kurdish researcher. The poems brings back memories of childhood and exile in equal measures. It evokes a sense of nostalgia for the good things in life and also painful events which happened to kurds during the era of Saddam Hussein's tyrani in Kurdistan- Iraq. I smiled when I read some and sobbed when I read another when I read the peoms which reminded me of the times I spent with my family and friends. I am sure it touches the heart of every reader somehow. Choman Hardi is speaking for me in a language which I could not express it myself. A wounderful read.

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Borrowed this from a friend and was so impressed by it I went and bought a copied to redigest in slow appreciation