The Kurdish Shepherd

Authors : Ebubekir Gören

Pages : 146-149

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Publication Date : 2022-01-25

Article Type : Bookreview

Abstract :The first Kurdish novelist saw the modern literary invention, the novel, as being an extension of the treasury of Kurdish folklore. This was the Soviet novelist Arab Shamilov (1897-1978), otherwise known as Ereb Shemo. Born in the city of Kars, then part of the Russian Empire, but now in northeastern Turkey, Shemo later did research on Kurdish literature at the Oriental Institute in Leningrad. The book under review focuses on Shemo’s first novel, Şivanê Kurmanca (Sivane Kurd), English title: The Kurdish Shepherd, written in 1935. Shemo wrote another historical novel, but it was the Kurdish Shepherd that was the first Kurdish modern novel to open the way for other writers in Kurdish to join the mainstream and write modern novels that were of a distinctively Kurdish nature.
Keywords : The Kurdish Shepherd, Ereb Shemo (Arab Shamilov), modern Kurdish novel, Kurdish folklore, first Kurdish novelist