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The Man in Blue Pyjamas
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 289

The Man in Blue Pyjamas

The style of my book must be in small pieces, as my life has been in pieces. (Jalal Barzanji) From 1986 to 1988 poet and journalist Jalal Barzanji endured imprisonment and torture under Saddam Hussein's regime because of his literary and journalistic achievements-writing that openly explores themes of peace, democracy, and freedom. It was not until 1998, when he and his family took refuge in Canada, that he was able to consider speaking out fully on these topics. Still, due to economic necessity, Barzanji's dream of writing had to wait until he was named Edmonton's first Writer-in-Exile in 2007. This literary memoir is the project Barzanji worked on while Writer-in-Exile, and it is the first translation of his work from Kurdish into English.

Trying Again to Stop Time
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 145

Trying Again to Stop Time

“It’s a losing battle: my words have no chance against time. Sometimes, unable to catch up with imagination, I leave the battle, candle in hand, in complete darkness.” — from “Trying Again to Stop Time" Jalal Barzanji chronicles the path of exile and estrangement from his beloved native Kurdistan to his chosen home in Canada. His poems speak of the tension that exists between the place of one’s birth and an adoptive land, of that delicate dance that happens in the face of censorship and oppression. In defiance of Saddam Hussein’s call for sycophantic political verse, he turns to the natural world to reference a mournful state of loss, longing, alienation, and melancholy. Barzan...

Trying Again to Stop Time
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 145

Trying Again to Stop Time

"One morning, long ago, juice from an apple dripped onto my words, leaving them stained forever." - From "A Soulful Sunshine" Jalal Barzanji's poetry willingly mutates his native Kurdish experiences into the global. In the tradition of Taslima Nasrin, Adonis, Yehuda Amichai, and Mahmoud Darwish, he speaks with the authority of exile, of the tension that exists between home and an adoptive land, of that delicate dance of defiance in the face of censorship and oppression. Barzanji's poetry is infused with the richness of the Middle East, but underneath, there are also strands of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and T.S. Eliot. It is here, in these moments where language and culture collide and co-operate that Barzanji finds a voice that, in its insistence on remaining true to itself, carves out a strong voice of opposition to political oppression. Barzanji will draw readers to his work again and again, the way in which we return to a favourite canvas.

The Story That Brought Me Here
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 227

The Story That Brought Me Here

Thousands of newcomers are pouring into Alberta from around the globe, bringing unexpected gifts. Many are writers and storytellers. What pulls them to Canada? What happens to them on the journey? What experiences have they deliberately left behind? What treasures do they bring? How do they describe their emerging sense of place and their creative aspirations in a new home? In this moving collection of stories and poems, writers from around the world share their thoughts on creating a life in Alberta. Expressed with beauty and clarity, and sometimes translated from the writer's native tongue, these very personal accounts of joy and sadness, regret and humour, homesickness and exuberance, des...

The Kurds
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 216

The Kurds

This collection of essays explores genocide and persecution of the Kurds, including the historical and cultural background of Kurdish persecution in Turkey and Iraq events from the rise of the communist People's Republic of China in 1949 to the present. Readers are presented with issues surrounding events such as Saddam Hussein's persecution of the Kurds in Iraq, Turkey's treatment of the Kurdish people, and the pros and cons of establishing an independent state for the Kurds. Personal narratives are included from people touched by the events including Kurdish survivors of Saddam Hussein's poison gas attacks and a Turkish Kurd who laments the denial of his cultural identity.

Resisting the Dehumanization of Refugees
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 420

Resisting the Dehumanization of Refugees

Refugees face distinct challenges and are often subject to dehumanization by politicians, media, and the public. In this context, Resisting the Dehumanization of Refugees provides urgent insights and policy relevant perspectives to improve refugees’ social well-being and integration. Taking a transdisciplinary approach, scholars from the social sciences, arts, and humanities, alongside practitioners and refugees, explore what it means to experience dehumanization. They consider how refugees’ experiences of dehumanization inform both epistemological and practical approaches to humanizing (or re-humanizing) refugees before, during, and after resettlement. By addressing these important issues, contributors marshall rich and multidimensional responses that draw upon our shared humanity and reveal new possibilities for change.

small things left behind
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 137

small things left behind

Lyric-narrative poetry of a Russian-Jewish refugee’s flight to Canada during the Cold War.

Narratives of Citizenship
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 409

Narratives of Citizenship

Examining various cultural products-music, cartoons, travel guides, ideographic treaties, film, and especially the literary arts-the contributors of these thirteen essays invite readers to conceptualize citizenship as a narrative construct, both in Canada and beyond. Focusing on indigenous and diasporic works, along with mass media depictions of Indigenous and diasporic peoples, this collection problematizes the juridical, political, and cultural ideal of universal citizenship. Readers are asked to envision the nation-state as a product of constant tension between coercive practices of exclusion and assimilation. Narratives of Citizenship is a vital contribution to the growing scholarship on narrative, nationalism, and globalization. Contributors: David Chariandy, Lily Cho, Daniel Coleman, Jennifer Bowering Delisle, Aloys N.M. Fleischmann, Sydney Iaukea, Marco Katz, Lindy Ledohowski, Cody McCarroll, Carmen Robertson, Laura Schechter, Paul Ugor, Nancy Van Styvendale, Dorothy Woodman, and Robert Zacharias.

Kidmonton
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 123

Kidmonton

An original look at a city's development through the eyes and words of real children who have lived there. Kidmonton: True Stories of River City Kids is a lively illustrated book for young readers that relates the city's history entirely from the point of view of real children over time. Using the techniques of fiction to bring true stories to life, the book embraces all of Edmonton's children: aboriginal, immigrant, inner-city and suburban, challenged and privileged, born in Edmonton and recently arrived. A timeline, glossary, and suggestions for more reading and city exploring are also included. This chapter book has been written specifically for eight and nine year-olds who often encounter Alberta's history for the first time in Grade Four. Full of fresh, vivid writing—and humour—it will be a pleasure to read in the classroom or at home. Kidmonton tells the city's story to its youngest citizens in a bold, new way. Please visit www.courageouskids.ca for more information on the whole Courageous Kids series.

Surviving the Gulag
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 297

Surviving the Gulag

"The terrified yell of my comrades makes me stop. I drop the potatoes into the grass and turn around. He has pulled out the pistol and is taking aim. Slowly I come back." Surviving the Gulag is the first-person account of a resourceful woman who survived five grueling years in Russian prison camps: starved, traumatized, and worked nearly to death. A story like Ilse Johansen's is rarely told—of a woman caught in the web of fascism and communism at the end of the Second World War and beginning of the Cold War. The candid story of her time as a prisoner, written soon after her release, provides startling insight into the ordeal of a German female prisoner under Soviet rule. Readers of memoir ...