Abdulla Goran (, b. in 1904 in
Halabja
Halabja ( ku, هەڵەبجە, Helebce, ) is a city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the capital of Halabja Governorate, located about northeast of Baghdad and from the Iranian border.
The city lies at the base of what is often referred to ...
- died 1962 in
Sulaymaniyah
Sulaymaniyah, also spelled as Slemani ( ku, سلێمانی, Silêmanî, ar, السليمانية, as-Sulaymāniyyah), is a city in the east of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, not far from the Iran–Iraq border. It is surrounded by the Azmar, Go ...
) was a leading
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
poet and translator of the 20th century.
Biography
Abdulla was born in
Halabja
Halabja ( ku, هەڵەبجە, Helebce, ) is a city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the capital of Halabja Governorate, located about northeast of Baghdad and from the Iranian border.
The city lies at the base of what is often referred to ...
in 1904 and received his education in local schools and the pedagogical institute in
Kirkuk
Kirkuk ( ar, كركوك, ku, کەرکووک, translit=Kerkûk, , tr, Kerkük) is a city in Iraq, serving as the capital of the Kirkuk Governorate, located north of Baghdad. The city is home to a diverse population of Turkmens, Arabs, Kurds, ...
. As a teacher in Kirkuk, he continued his self-education by learning new languages and studying
Turkish and
Western literature
Western literature, also known as European literature, is the literature written in the context of Western culture in the languages of Europe, as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque and Hungarian, an ...
. He took part in radical political and social causes in the 1930s and was frequently arrested until the
14 July Revolution
The 14 July Revolution, also known as the 1958 Iraqi coup d'état, took place on 14 July 1958 in Iraq, and resulted in the overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq that had been established by Faisal I of Iraq, King Faisal I in 1921 under the ...
in 1958. He spent much effort on creating a single Kurdish literary language by merging the two Kurdish dialects
Kurmanji
Kurmanji ( ku, کورمانجی, lit=Kurdish, translit=Kurmancî, also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northern dialect of the Kurdish languages, spoken predominantly in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq, northern Sy ...
and
Sorani
Central Kurdish (), also called Sorani (), is a Kurdish dialect or a language that is spoken in Iraq, mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the provinces of Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan in western Iran. Sorani is one of the two o ...
. He was moreover a skilled translator and translated texts from English, French, Persian and Turkish to Kurdish. He died in 1962 in Sulaymaniyah.
Poetry
Goran combined traditional Kurdish classical and folk verses with contemporary lyricism and diversified the subject matter. He introduced
blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and P ...
,
prose poem
Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form, while preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects.
Characteristics
Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associat ...
, and new rhyme schemes and abandoned the
aruz.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goran, Abdulla
Iraqi Kurdish people
People from Sulaymaniyah Province
Iraqi Kurdish poets
1904 births
1962 deaths
Halabja
Deaths from cancer in Iraq
University of Baghdad faculty
20th-century Iraqi poets