SULAIMANI – (ESTA) Today is the eleventh anniversary of Sherko Bekas’s passing who he was a Kurdish-famous poet and writer around Kurdistan and world.
Sherko Bekas was born on May 2, 1940, in Sulaimani, Kurdistan Region and he was a Kurdish-famous poet and writer around Kurdistan and world who died of cancer on August 4, 2013, in Stockholm, Sweden.
He published his first poem at the age of 17 and in 1968, his first book of poetry, Trifay Halbast, was published in Baghdad.
In 1970, together with a group of famous poets of that time, he published a call for change in Kurdish poetry, especially towards new Kurdish poetry.
Bekas is considered one of the most innovative contemporary Kurdish poets. He has published several booklets and books of poetry. Many of his poems have been translated into several languages. In 1987, he won the Tucholsky Prize in Sweden.
Sherko, in 1992, became the Minister of Culture in the first cabinet of the Kurdistan Regional Government. In 1998, with the help of several friends, he founded Sardam Publishing House. In 2009, he published 8,000 pages of his work.
