{"id":13885,"date":"2025-03-27T19:09:20","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T23:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nykcc.org\/?p=13885"},"modified":"2025-04-23T18:12:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T22:12:51","slug":"the-good-the-bad-and-the-gringo-by-kae-bahar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nykcc.org\/oldsite\/the-good-the-bad-and-the-gringo-by-kae-bahar\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Good, the Bad, and the Gringo” by Kae Bahar"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\"The Good, the Bad, and the Gringo\" by Kae Bahar<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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\"BookKae Bahar, The Good, the Bad, and the Gringo. <\/em>Afsana Press, 2024. Previous title: Letters from a Kurd<\/em>. Fiction, 432 pages.<\/strong><\/p>

This novel was discussed at the Book Club on March 4, 2025. The author joined us.<\/p>

Kae Bahar is an award-winning writer and filmmaker. As he grew up in Ba\u015fur during the Saddam Hussein regime, storytelling and watching films kept hope alive. At the age of fourteen he was arrested and tortured by the secret police. With his family\u2019s help, he escaped to Italy to avoid a second arrest and possible death. Once in Europe, he worked as an actor and produced films for major broadcasters. Currently based in the UK, he has written, produced, and directed 22 films, including short fiction and feature-length documentaries. They have been screened in over 200 international film festivals, and most have won multiple awards. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>

\u00a0<\/em>His first novel and only, published in 2015, was Letters from a Kurd<\/em>. In 2024 it was reissued in 2024 under a new title: The Good, the Bad, and the Gringo<\/em>. The novel tells the story of Merywan, a Kurdish boy growing up under the Saddam Hussein regime.<\/p>

\"BookWhy the title change?<\/em><\/p>

The first edition was published during the ISIS war, when the world woke up to the existence of Kurds. So they put in that title to help it sell. It did well and got good reviews. But it\u2019s not appropriate for the content. So when it came time to produce a second edition, we reverted to the title.<\/p>

\u00a0Merywan is in love with Sergio Leone\u2019s film The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly<\/em>. The novel is the same except for the new title and the new cover.<\/p>

Why that film? And why Clint Eastwood and not some other actor?<\/em><\/p>

I was absolutely in love with Leone\u2019s spaghetti westerns: A Fistful of Dollars. For a Few Dollars More,<\/em> then The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly<\/em>. They all had Clint Eastwood as lead. I grew up with him as my hero. He is a giant, an actor and a director into his old age. In Merywan\u2019s era, too, Clint was the one.<\/p>

Merywan has been made to fear that the is a neuter. In that society, it\u2019s a big problem. Gender ambiguity is an unusual topic in Kurdish literature. What is a neuter?<\/em><\/p>

A neuter is a hermaphrodite. The novel Middlesex<\/em> is also about it. I used it to tackle a great taboo in Kurdish society: talking about sex. It\u2019s our \u00a0most taboo topic.\u00a0 Creating a character as a neuter was great way to go into the world of what it means to be gay or straight, neither or both.<\/p>

Growing up, I had a friend who was gay as a teenager, and he suffered horrendously. \u00a0I wanted to highlight the subject.\u00a0 Humans are humans, and we have gender issues. It\u2019s important to celebrate our differences, and to do that we have to talk about them. \u00a0<\/p>

Did that topic lead to complications in publishing the novel?<\/em><\/p>

I wrote it in English, and my Kurdish readers are all English speaking, which means they are also highly educated. So no complications there. When I publish the Kurdish version, I expect there\u2019ll be more reaction to it.<\/p>

I\u2019ve made many films but only one book. When I worked as an actor in London, I performed in a dramatization of Isabel Allende\u2019s House of the Spirits. It was a joy to meet her. But people didn\u2019t know who Kurds are. When I arrived in Europe, I introduced myself as coming from Kurdistan, people said \u201cPakistan?\u201d<\/p>

And when I went into bookshops, I didn\u2019t find one Kurdish novel, not one! Kurds have done so much struggling, so much lobbying, but not one novel! We have thousands of Che Guevaras fighting for our freedom, but the world doesn\u2019t know about them. \u00a0So I decided to write the first Kurdish novel in English.<\/p>

Do you have a publisher for the Kurdish translation?<\/em><\/p>

I\u2019m working on a big film project now. I think the translation will be published after I finish the film. It\u2019s called Roman and Juliet<\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s a romantic political thriller. A literary agent suggested that I base a story on Shakespeare\u2019s play, and it hit me, of course, it\u2019s perfect for two ethnicities, Kurds and Arabs. In the film marriage is a metaphor for relations between Kurds and Arabs, a love-hate story that has gone on for decades.<\/p>

Will this novel be made into a film?<\/em><\/p>

I agree it would make a good film. It\u2019s a visual novel. It would be a good film. I had hoped Clint Eastwood would come forward to direct it. I sent a copy of the book to his company but never heard from him. It will be made eventually.<\/p>

Are any of your films available on screening? <\/em><\/p>

A few are on my YouTube channel<\/a>. You can watch them there.<\/p>

You raise the topic of religion in a touching way. Meryam is a devout Muslim, but his best friend Rabbit is an atheist and scorns his religiosity. He asks Meryam to give him one reason why God created us. Merywan searches for such a reason, so he can tell Rabbit and reconnect with him.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>

Rabbit had every right to raise that difficult question. Once for a documentary, I interviewed the leader of an Islamic group in Kurdistan. \u201cTell me of one thing that I need to do because of religion that I can\u2019t do myself out of my own conscience,\u201d I asked. He had no answer for me.<\/p>

Religion in Kurdistan is a delicate subject. Originally we were Zoroastrian. Then came Jews and Christians and Muslims, Yezidis and Wahhabis. It\u2019s important to protect the rights of all these groups. Muslims are the majority but they have no right to dominate the others. Shawes is a Muslim. Popcorn is a Yezidi. I wanted it to be a matter of discussion.<\/p>

Abu Ali breaks into the department store and rapes Aida in front of everybody then shoots her in front of everybody. It shocked me. I knew about Saddam\u2019s brutality, but such a brazen act surprised me. Did you ever hear of such actual events?<\/em><\/p>

Unfortunately yes. Saddam\u2019s men would point at any girl on the street, and they would have her, end of story. But in this case, Abu Ali was torturing Merywan, he knows Merywan is watching.<\/p>

Also, Aida is Christian, and Merywan, despite being so fanatic about Islam, falls for her. Ultimately, he even asks her, \u201cCould you convert to Islam so I can marry you?\u201d She says, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you convert to Christianity?\u201d He says, \u201cBecause my father would kill me.\u201d Aida represents how Saddam attacked Christians.<\/p>

Now I have a question for you. An editor once told me, \u201cI love your book because Merywan doesn\u2019t go to the United States in the end.\u201d For example, in The Kite Runner<\/em>, the protagonist leaves. But Merywan decides not to leave. How do you feel about that as readers?<\/p>

There\u2019s a whole genre of fiction where characters leave for America. This novel comes across as fascinated with America. Personal individual freedom is important to Merywan, and there\u2019s more individual freedom in America. But once Merywan becomes a part of the resistance, he sees there\u2019s no point in leaving. He has a mission now at home. Also, people in the resistance need people with ideals and dreams and brains like him. <\/em><\/p>

Personal freedom is a very important subject for me. The backbone of the novel is that Merywan doesn\u2019t want to lose his. I think personal freedom is lacking among the Kurds. We\u2019re too much like a sheep society. In the flock, everyone behaves the same, they look and talk the same, they follow the same cultural habits. But it\u2019s fake. Always trying to be nice and smiley is fake. It denies us the ability to understand what freedom really is. Kurdish leaders talk about freedom. But suppose we have a free Kurdistan, and there are no LGBT rights, no atheists, you can\u2019t wear anything different, and having extramarital sex will get you killed. What makes a society truly rich and colorful? It\u2019s individualism, everyone being themselves.<\/p>

I\u2019m Kurdish. I\u2019ve spent 45 years in exile, but that\u2019s the reality. We need to really look into the issue of individual freedom if we want to have healthy big-picture freedom.\u00a0<\/p>

You\u2019re passionate about your beliefs. It\u2019s very powerful. Do you have the same discussions in Kurdistan?<\/em><\/p>

Yes because I\u2019m very individual. People see the difference in the way I behave and dress and so on. It\u2019s very personal. I often discuss it, but with compassion and respect and tolerance for other views.<\/p>

It\u2019s been a great pleasure to talk to you. Thanks for reading the book. \u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The Good, the Bad, and the Gringo” by Kae Bahar Kae Bahar, The Good, the Bad, and the Gringo. Afsana Press, 2024. Previous title: Letters from a Kurd. Fiction, 432 pages. This novel was discussed at the Book Club on March 4, 2025. The author joined us. Kae Bahar is an award-winning writer and filmmaker. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-club","category-literature"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nykcc.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nykcc.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nykcc.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nykcc.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nykcc.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13885"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/nykcc.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13894,"href":"https:\/\/nykcc.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13885\/revisions\/13894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nykcc.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nykcc.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nykcc.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nykcc.org\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}