Latif Halmat is a famous Kurdish author, poet, and journalist who was born in 1947 in Kirkuk.
In 1979, he began his writing career in the field of children's literature. He has more than twenty poems Diwans and 17 books for children. In 2006, his works were collected to make a 5000-page book. He received the "APEC" award for his Diwan for Children.
He was born into an intellectual family. From the age of eight, he participated in his father's meetings he used to hold for his companions and friends and Latif fell in love with poems of Hafez and Sa'di Shirazi, Farid al-din Attar Neishabouri, Jal al din Romi, Khayyam, Bidel, Ferdousi, Ibn Arabi and …. His father used to recite those poems for in his meetings and translate them into Kurdish.
Later, he felt very interested in new Arabic and European poetry. His favorite poets were Badr Shakr Sayab, Abdul Wahab Bayati, Bilnd Haydari, Adunis, Nizar Ghabani, Mahmoud Darwish, Samih Shalli, Bayron, Keats, Mayakovski, Nazem Hekmat, and hundreds of other poets old and new.
In the mid-1960s he broadcasted his works in the "Jalal Mirza Karim" and "Abdullah Abbas" program in Baghdad Kurdish radio station.
Character Designer: Hemn Qaremani
His first poem was published in 1969 in Rizgari Magazine which was published in Suleimani. His first Diwan called "God and our little town" was published in 1970. His first book in the children's literature field was "The Most Beautiful Village" published in 1979. In 1970, he became the first member of the Kurdistan Writers' Union.
After Goran, Latif Halmat is one of the most eminent voices in the history of new Kurdish poetry, and during the 1970s he participated in the new Kurdish poetry writing seriously. He is also the first poet who write poetic prose in Kurdish. This poet became famous for his work "God and Our Little Town" which was a collection of poems.
Latif Halmat has published more than 79 works in the fields of "Kurdish and Arabic poetry, Kurdish and Arabic analysis, Children's poems, stories and plays, and translation from Arabic".
His works have been translated and published in many languages including Arabic, Persian, Turkmen, German, English, Swedish, and French. There are also tens of critical articles about Latif Halmat's works in Kurdish, Arabic, and Persian. A lot of people have received their Master's degree or Doctoral dissertation for analyzing his works. He has received many awards in Kurdistan and other countries for his works one of which is an award from Sweden for his children's poetry.
His published works:
Kurdish Poetry:
God and our little town
Preparing to be born again
That girl's braids are my tent in all seasons
The white thunderstorm
Those letters that my mother won't read
That poem that will end and will not
Beautiful words are flowers
The anthem for the miserable
This river will not dry out
Latif Halmat's wolves
There is no wild desert left except for women
The teeth of the future are as white as the teeth of war
Latif Halmat Diwan volume 1
Latif Halmat Diwan volume 2
Latif Halmat Diwan volume 3
Poem against poem
The lost verses of the twenty first century or the returning verse
For Childhood
The cloud and disappearance of the texts or the hidden face of Latif Halmat
The forest has always been waiting for its lost birds to return
Arabic Poems:
The iron city
The old Cleopatra and the rain's children
The clouds' shifts
The Literary Analysis:
Poem… beetles… and mini skirts
Those words that insult the dark night
Sufi and Sufism and the non-Islamic ideology effects
About Islamic Sufism
The history of Sufism and Sufism throughout history
From Dadaism to Surrealism
How and what to write for children
The types of texts for children
Poems and Stories for Children:
The most beautiful village
Another nest
A bird with the prettiest voice
The child and rain
The child and sparrow
The child and a doll
The sparrow on the tree
The flower in the flower pot
The donkey and the king
Selected works for children and adults
Asking children questions
The clock
The trees' debate
A cat is riding a bike
The moon sleeps among one thousand and one stars
The Kurdish stories in Arabic
The children Diwan volume 1
The children Diwan volume 2
The collection of children's works: published four times
The Stories and Plays:
A lullaby for Ur
Palestine is always Ghassan Kanfani's land
Translated Texts from Arabic:
Poem, a European embrace and the dictatorship of the soul
All the seven Dada declarations in Kurdish
There is nothing in this room_ a selection of neo-Arabic and global poems
God, please come to America_ a selection of neo-Arabic and global poems
The females were always here_ Sa'ad Al Sabah poems
I hided my head in her lap like a child_ Nizar Ghabani's poems
Halabja_ poems from a Rojava poet, Taha Khalil, translated into Kurdish
A selection of Nizar Ghabani's poems_ Nizar Ghabani's poems
Hearts Made of Glass_ a collection of Kurdish folklore poems translated into Arabic
Natali Sarot and the Rise and the New Novels_ including a preface, some examples of folklore stories, and the new global novels of Natali Sarot
Novels:
The evil women of Sheikh Mahmoud
The Awards:
The golden Bawagur award _ in Kirkuk
The golden Ibrahim Ahmad award _ in Suleimani
Apec Award_ in Sweden for Children's Literature
Gold Shield Award of Kurdistan Communist Party in Suleimani
Several memorial meetings and the award of the Ministry of Culture of Kurdistan Region
Several memorial meetings by the Ministry of Education in the Kurdistan Region
Several memorial meetings by the Ministry of Culture of the Federal Iraq
Memorial meeting by the Federal Iraq Writers' Union in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture of Federal Iraq at a Festival in Baghdad
Memorial held by Kurdsat channel, children's program