Kurdshop - The book of the author and translator Saima Khakpour, "Eran Khanim, a Cry from Urmia", has been published by Nawbahar publishing house.
Saima Khakpour, in her book, tells the life of a Kurdish artist, pain and sorrow, joy and tears, laughter and cry, complaints and sadness of a group of people.
About the Author
Saima Khakpour was born in 1983 in Urmia, East part of Kurdistan. She studied Turkish and Persian literature at university and worked on the Kurdish language for many years.
She is translating from Kurdish into Persian and from Persian into Kurdish. She has translated dozens of plays, screenplays, biographies, and short stories and published them in magazines.
Along with translation, she also writes short stories. Her short story "The Cry of the Blind Lovers' Hearts" won the 2021 Short Story Prize at the Hague Film Festival.
Works of Saima Khakpour
- 99 Scattered Pearls (translation), (Received the Best Work Award in 2021 in Urmia Province.) Halim Yousef, Afraz, Tehran 2020
- Flying with Broken Wings (translation), Halim Yousef, Afraz, Tehran 2020
- The Cry of a Century of Karapet Khacho (translation), Saleh Kevrbri, Bojnurd, Khorasan, 2020
- The Cry of Shimshal (translation), Yousef Hamid, Afraz, Tehran 2022
- Eran Khanim, A Cry from Urmia, Istanbul, Nawbahar 2023
Biography of Eran Khanim
Eran Mojarad, also known as Eran Khanim or Eran Khan, was born in 1951 in Ichkeso village, Soma and Bradost regions of Urmia.
Eran Khanim is the daughter of Abdul Rahman and Pereshan. She has a brother and a sister. Their mother died at a very young age, leaving all three children. When Pareshan died, her children stayed with an aunt named Jawahir, but Jawahir could not take care of them for unknown reasons. Later, a woman named Badijamal, the sister of Jawahir's husband, took care of the three children. Unfortunately, shortly later, Eran Khanim's brother and sister died of the disease, and Eran Khanim was left alone.
Years and months pass and Eran Khanim becomes nine years. She knows everything and understands that nice Badijamal is not her mother, but she has taken care of her as a mother to raise her. Eran begins a search to find her father and their village.
As a child, Eran sang in the diwan of Hovesen village and filled the diwans with her soft and pleasant voice. Especially on autumn and winter nights, the voice of this beautiful girl goes in the diwans and fills the Soma and Bradost plains with her beautiful voice. She was the first Kurdish female singer in Urmia to sing with the late singer Khale Bre on Urmia Radio accompanied by the Miste's Shimshal.
Eran Khan Kofi Shikaki would get ready and go to Urmia Radio to sing. She was known as Kofi Shikaki and with her beauty, gave Radio Urmia such a sweet affection that everyone loved to watch it. There is no one in Urmia who does not have memories of this singer or there is no household without her caste. Even the children of that time were familiar with her voice and everyone has memories of her voice.
When she was asked when she started singing, Eran replied:
“I don't really know, but as far as I remember I sing, maybe when I was in my mother's womb, maybe when my umbilical cord was cut off and mixed with the Zark River, maybe when my mother died my cries were songs I sang for my mom's death."
Eran Khanim has composed and sung her own songs. Most of her songs are about sadness, loneliness, love, and strangeness. The number of her songs is unknown, and most of those she sang on Urmia Radio have not been recorded in the archives.
The voice of this Kurdish female artist has a special role in the history of singing. To this day, 21 years after her death, we have never heard a voice like her.
In 2001, Ms. Eran passed away and an artistic star was buried in the Dimdim Castle so we could read the details of her unjust death in her biography.
Being a Kurdish artist, above all being a woman, being homeless and your death is as unfair as your life; the loneliness, forgetfulness, and injustice.
