Bachtyar Ali Author

Bachtyar Ali was born in Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1966. He has established himself as an influential novelist since the mid-1990s. His books have become instant bestsellers in both Iraq and Iran. Today, Ali is one of the most famous contemporary Kurdish writers, with over 25,000 copies of each of his novels sold in Kurdish (Sorani). His novel The Last Pomegranate Tree sold 25,000 copies in German and is part of the list of the 100 best books of the 21st century by NZZ Germany 2024. In 2009 Ali received the first HARDI Literature Prize, awarded by the largest cultural festival in the Kurdish part of Iraq. 2014 he was awarded the newly-founded Sherko Bekas Literature Prize, in 2017 the prestigious Nelly-Sachs-Prize and in 2023 the Hilde-Domin-Prize. This prize is given to writers who live in exile in Germany and publish in German language. Ali has been living in Cologne and Wuppertal, Germany, since 1998.