Writing Resistance

Acclaimed journalist and human rights defender Nurcan Baysal offers a powerful and deeply personal account of what it means to be Kurdish in Turkey. She chronicles a period of renewed conflict that profoundly affected Kurdish communities, while exploring issues of discrimination, identity, language rights, and political struggle.As new efforts toward dialogue and peace emerge, WRITING RESISTANCE provides an essential guide to understanding the recent history, lived realities, and future challenges of the Kurdish question. Compelling, courageous, and urgent, WRITING RESISTANCE is both a witness to recent history and a call for justice, recognition, and lasting peace.

Nurcan Baysal is a Kurdish human rights defender, journalist and writer.She was born and grew up in Diyarbakir. She has worked for poverty and development programs at the United Nations Development Programme and various other non-governmental organizations. Following the ISIS attacks in 2014 she volunteered for the establishment of Yazidi camps in Northern Iraq and Turkey. Baysal is a founder of the Diyarbakir Institute for Political and Social Research (DISA), the Development Centre Association in Diyarbakir and the Platform to Save Women Kidnapped by ISIS. She is also one of the Middle East advisors of the Global Fund for Women and the Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism.Among her books are three non-fiction works, O Gun (That Day), Ezidiler: 73. Ferman(Ezidis: The 73rd Decree), O Sesler (Those Voices-Diyarbakir: A City Under Siege, publishedonline in English by 60pages), a book of short-stories, Yok Zamani (The Timeof Nothingness) and a research she co-authored with Seyhmus Diken, Kurdistan'da SivilToplum (Civil Society in Kurdistan).Since 2013, Baysal has been featured as a columnist in various newspapers and media outlets. Her articles focus on human rights violations, poverty, refugees, humanitarian issues and the Kurdish question. She is a member of PEN Turkey and an honorary member of English PEN.Baysal won the Women's World Summit Foundation (WWSF) Prize for Women's Creativity in Rural Life in 2010 and the "Turkey's Changemakers" award in 2012 for her work in poverty alleviation. In 2017, she was awarded the "Brave Women Journalists Award" presented by the Italian Women Journalists Association. In 2018, she was named Global Laureate for Human Rights Defenders at Risk by Front Line Defenders. She also received the Deutsche Welle Freedom of Speech Award in 2020.