Kurdish subjectivity: Liminal Kurd characters stymied in harsh liminal contexts in Sherzad Hassan’s short fiction

Abstract

ABSTRACT Investigating the way Sherzad Hassan represents the liminal status of the leading characters in his short fiction, this paper attempts to probe into the question of Kurdish subjectivity and Identity by discussing the liminal position of Kurds in Iraq in decades that culminated in their Anfal by Saddam Hussein. Victor Turner’s concept of liminality forms the theoretical background of the analysis. ‘Lausanne’, ‘Marlin’, ‘The Game of Changing Beds’, ‘The Sad Song of Being a Stranger’, ‘Secret’, ‘Smoke’, ‘The Alley of the Scarecrows’, and ‘Azrael’ among others are the selected short stories in which liminality has been scrutinized. Sherzad Hassan has employed music, incoherence, heteronomy, anonymity, verisimilitude, nakedness, limbo, tomb, womb, indeterminacy, hospital, patients, paralysis, gate, curtain, widowhood, smoke, scarecrows, portmanteau, and angels as the conventions of representing liminality. Given these facts, the paper comes up with the conclusion that the characters’ aspirations for development in their circumstances are mouldered. Tranquillity, cohesion and reintegration into the Kurdish society seem to be a mere mirage for the individuals.