That child grew up, went to schools and universities. In that beautiful language of the state he wrote in newspapers, magazines and books. He got older, and grayness invaded the hair of his entire soul. To calm down the snaps of fire in his burning soul he stained the faces of white papers with his black ink. He wrote stories about forbidden language, forbidden love, and forbidden life. A black ink inspired in its darkness by the darkness of night. He wrote at night and slept during the day.

Güler made the translation of the book into a community project, involving a number of Kurdish cultural figures in the translation. First, he translated the book from Galician into Turkish with the help of a Galician friend and teacher, Pepa Baamonde. The next step was to translate the individual stories into Kurdish, and 34 writers, singers, translators and politicians shared this task.

'Amen,' she whispered.
Nanw was mimicking her by leaning against her cage’s grid, arms clutched round her body. The weak light glowed silver in Mari’s hair and ruby across the dark face of the monkey.
The chill had crept up Mari’s spine so she fetched a cardigan and hooked it over her shoulders. She let the cat into the bedroom to keep Nanw company while Mari had her breakfast.

It seems they dare not celebrate what their main writers are actually writing. I can’t help wondering what Kafka would have made of this, in his hometown? We get stuck in to our fascinating and illuminating debates – both on and off the stage – with our real pan-Arab guests, guests in the original sense of the word, many of them blazing with the true honour of ongoing revolutionary involvement. Whatever topic is set for the panels to ruminate on, it just comes back again and again to revolution, in all its senses – regime change, paradigm shift, toppling the dominant father, the auto-censor, the harasser.