Choman Hardi, Kurdistan, Iraq

Choman Hardi was born in Southern Kurdistan (Iraq) just before her family fled to Iran. She returned to her hometown at the age of five and lived there until she was fourteen. When the Iraqi government used chemical weapons on the Kurds in 1988 her family fled to Iran again. She has lived in Iraq, Iran and Turkey before coming to England in 1993.

Choman studied philosophy and psychology at Queen's College, Oxford and has an MA in philosophy from University College London. Currently she is a PhD candidate at the University of Kent in Canterbury, researching about the mental health of Kurdish women refugees between the clash of cultures.

She has published two collections of poetry in Kurdish: 'Return with no memory' (Denmark, 1996) and 'Light of the shadows' (Sweden, 1998). Bloodaxe will publish her first collection of poetry in English in 2004.

Choman was nominated for the Arts Foundation scholarship 2002 and has won the 2003 Jerwood-Arvon Young Poet’s Apprenticeship. She was commissioned by the South Bank and Apples and Snakes to take part in the ‘Poetry International Festival’ Festival 2002, the Royal Festival Hall.

She has facilitated creative writing workshops for the British Council (UK, Belgium, Czech Republic and India) as well as many other organizations. Also an artist, Choman has contributed to a number of joint exhibitions in Britain and across Europe.

She is the chair of Exiled Writers' Ink! which is an organization consisting of established refugee writers who write in another language as well as English. The organization aims to represent those writers whose voice has not been represented in the main stream British media.

Her father Ahmad Hardi, who also lives in London, is a very well-known and much respected Kurdish poet: “poetry started with my father, his regular recital of poetry at moments of anger, sadness, and laughter has had the greatest effect on me”.

Reza Baraheni, Iran               Kamran Mir Hazar, Afghanistan