Dr. Zurab Aloian

The Translation and Linguistic Rigths Committee

At our last Congress I was elected as the Chair the Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee of the Kurdish PEN Center.

From the very beginning Dr. Zaradachet Hajo has been encouraging me to try to bring our PEN Center to the same Committee of the PEN International which would be useful for the cause of protection of the Kurdish language and literature, as righfully has been today noticed by Mrs. Lucina Kathmann.

In late 2001, I have written and phoned to Mr. Carles Torner, the former Chair (and current Vice-Chair) of the Translation & Linguistic Rights Committee. Later, Dr. Zaradachet talked to the new Chair of the Committee Mrs. Kulavkova from the Macedonian PEN Center and with the valuable assistance of Mrs. Lucina Kathmann, who also had written to Mrs. Kulavkova, we have been admitted to that Committee which embraces 35 national PEN Centers. I can refer to some of those Centers which are in a similar sitaution with us or with whom we may co-operate in the future: Armenian, Bosnian, Catalan, Galician, Esperanto, Hungarian, Israeli, Palestinian, Mexico, Quebecois, Tatar, Russian and Scottish PEN Centers.

Last December, Mr. Mustafa Rechid represented us at the meeting in Pula, Croatia, where he was fortunate to establish contacts with improtant figures from other PEN Centers and UNESCO.

In order to be able to work within this Committee, I believe that the Kurdish PEN should nominate several people who represent various countries and who could inform the PEN International about latest updates concerning the translation of Kurdish literature into Arabic, Persian, Turkish or other languages as well as the Kurdish translations of the literatures of our neighbours.