"Whispering Walls" by Choman Hardi

Choman Hardi, Whispering Walls (Afsana Press, 2023).

In the tense weeks leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, three siblings—two in London, one in Slemani—recall their troubled past. They have a complex history, from Kurdistan to the Diaspora. Each sibling confronts their ghosts and tragedies in their own way.

Choman Hardi is the seventh and youngest child of Kurdish poet Ahmed Hardi. After several stages of forced displacement, she was granted refugee status in England in 1993. She studied at Oxford, London, and Kent universities. Her postdoctoral research saw her return to Kurdistan to document the plight of women survivors of Anfal.