INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE ACTS OF REMEMBERING IN TWO NOVELS ABOUT FAYLI KURDS BY DIASPORIC IRAQI WOMEN WRITERS

This article discusses two novels written in Arabic by diasporic Iraqi women writers: The Wall by Laylā Tshurāġī, published in 2009, and Qismat by Ḥawrā’ an-Nadāwī, published in 2018. The works are devoted to Fayli Kurds and thus represent a noticeable trend in recent Iraqi fiction towards (re)discovering Iraq’s ethno-religious minorities. In contrast to the vast majority of literary texts by Iraqi Arab authors that include secondary Kurdish characters, the novels by Tshurāġī and an-Nadāwī provide an insightful portrayal of the collective fate of Fayli Kurds in Iraq and Iran and in exile in the West in the 20th and 21st centuries. In the article, these two novels are examined as fictions of memory, in line with Birgit Neumann’s concept. The Wall is considered as an autobiographical memory novel, while Qismat is scrutinized as a communal memory novel. Both works are concerned with the marginalised memories and ethno-religious identity of Fayli Kurds, and provide a stage for depicting individual and collective acts of remembering by their fictional representatives. In the final section of the article, conclusions are drawn with respect to these works and other selected studies in cultural memory.