| Sherko Bekas | |
| Birth Name: | Shêrko Fayeq Abdulla Bêkes |
| Birth Date: | 1940 5, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Silêmanî, Kurdistan Region |
| Death Place: | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Occupation: | Poet |
| Spouse: | [1] |
Sherko Fayaq Abdullah (Kurdish: شێرکۆ فایەق عەبدوڵا; 2 May 1940 – 4 August 2013), was a Kurdish poet. He was born on 2 May 1940 in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region in Iraq as the son of the poet Fayak Bekas. He is widely regarded as one of the poets who founded contemporary Kurdish poetry. Sherko's poetry explores liberty, love, life, and nature while reflecting the contemporary political, cultural, and spiritual conditions of the Kurdish people. Sherko's poetry on freedom and liberty has influenced many poets such as Ahmad Shamlou and Ali Salehi.[2]
Sherko Bekes, the son of Fayaq Bekas and Shafiqa Saeedi, was born on 2 May 1940 in the Goizha neighborhood of Sulaymaniyah. After the death of his father, at the age of 8, he lived in extreme poverty and managed to complete high school with great difficulty. He was seventeen years old when he published his first poem in Zhin newspaper. In 1965, Bekas joined the Kurdish liberation movement and worked in the movement's radio station, The Voice of Kurdistan. In 1968, he published the first collection of poems, and he married Nasrin Mirza in 1969. He died of cancer in Stockholm, Sweden on 4 August 2013.[3] Sherko Bekas with his wife Nasrin Mirza
In 1971, Bekas introduced the "Rûwange" (vision) element into Kurdish poetry; this was a break from the strict traditional rules of poetry, such as rhyme. The poems translated in "The Secret Diary of a Rose" by Reingard and Shirwan Mirza, with Renate Saljoghi, are examples of this style. For the first time, he introduced the "poster poem" (a term originating from sculpture and painting) in 1975 into Kurdish poetry.
Bekas' works have been translated into Arabic, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Italian, French and English. In 1987, he was awarded the "Tucholsky scholarship" of the Pen club in Stockholm, and in the same year, he was awarded the freedom prize of the city of Florence.
A two-volume collection of his poetry works has been published in Kurdish under the title "Sherko Bekas' Diwan" in Sweden. These two 1000-page volumes contain his poetic works in their entirety. He has read his poems in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, United Kingdom, Russia, and Italy, where he was named honorary citizen of Milan. He visited the United States in 1990.
