As a Kurdish woman, born in Mariwan, the story line mimics my experiences, feeling the oppression with every single cell in my body: both as a woman under the inhumane Islamic Regime and as a Kurd under a Racist system. For non-Kurds "Daughters of Smoke and Fire" might be approached as a “Novel” but to millions of Kurds this “work of art” is a factual memoir. The systematic racism which has seeped into the society is well portrayed in the novel. In first grade I was called “an infidel Kurd” by a Persian “Khahar” (Sister: moral police in schools); I knew I was a Kurd but did not understand the infidel part, which upon inquiring from my father, he replied to “yes, we are and there’s nothing wrong with it, one should love humanity for the sake of humanity”.
I am grateful for Ava Homa who has so elegantly articulated the pain, hatred and fear Kurds feel every day. The depiction of the Police State in the occupied Kurdistan parallels to 1984 and how those opposing the system are exterminated.
Being deprived of our basic human rights to self-determination, being forced to learn Arabic because it's language of Islam yet deprived of our native tongue!! Atrocities still continue, the beautiful Kurdland torn into four pieces.
Ava Homa is an amazing writer, her talent enables her to give voice to those who have none, I was in tears for some chapters and was rejoicing for the others, those were my memories, it was about me! I did not want to eat or sleep until I finished the novel, many of the scenes were so vivid and well-articulated I remembered myself walking along Zrebar Lake and hating the occupying army whose boots were trembling the poppies on my blood-soaked land!
There are so many lines that burnt into my memory, the one I love the most is when Leila responds to the question of if she’s proud to be Kurdish, and her reply is “Proud is not the right word”; being proud of belonging to a certain race, gender or religion has no merit for pride, one did not do anything to belong to that group except being born into it by chance. We should strive to make others’ lives better, we should strive to spread love and stop hatred and war, we should strive toward healing wounds and opening a communication bridge, for humanity to see one another as equals deserving of same rights, only and only then we can say we’re proud.
Ava gian bravo for penning an amazing literary work, in every sense of the word!!
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About the author
FOR MANY, ONE
On the cover of Ava Homa's DAUGHTERS OF SMOKE AND FIRE, a single poppy bloom burns red."...You had to set fire to your fear and silence..." Kurdish poet Sherko Bekas' quote follows, then a map of Kurdistan, the autonomous region landlocked between Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. Before the Epilogue even begins, isolation and entrapment lodge deeply within the reader. And then, the first words: "A woman alone on the mountain at dusk.""Basa Bas," young artist and activist Leila says. "Enough."She "isn't hiding anymore." Of 40 million stateless Kurds, Leila is one. In bringing the vast geo-political issue straight to the forefront with a single story, she intimately and fearlessly narrates for the rest--including her brother--who cannot.
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