Founding Director
Marie is a poet, translator, and professor. She holds a PhD in Kurdish Studies from the University of Exeter. Her book-length works include Kajal Ahmed's Handful of Salt, Abdulla Pashew's Dictionary of Midnight, Selim Temo’s Nightlands, Farhad Pirbal’s The Potato Eaters, and Exile is Arrival, a landmark anthology of 19th century Kurdish poetry (2025). Her writing has appeared in Poetry, Modern Poetry in Translation, World Literature Today, Plume, Epiphany, The Iowa Review, and Words Without Borders. She served as the Founding Director of Slemani’s UNESCO City of Literature. She was a 2022 NEA Fellow, the first ever working from the Kurdish.

Director of Special Projects
Sarwar received his Bachelors degree in Business Administration from the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS) in 2019. After beginning at Kashkul as a staff translator and researcher, he then served two years as both Kashkul’s Assistant Director and Slemani’s City Liaison to the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, coordinating local and global arts initiatives. In 2022, having received the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth Development Office’s Chevening Scholarship, he graduated his Masters degree in Arts Policy and Management at Birbeck, University of London.

Digital Presence & Events Strategist

Pshtiwan is a filmmaker, graphic designer and translator. He graduated from the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani, majoring in IT and minoring in English Literature. He has managed the visual art archive at Kashkul and curated exhibitions for Ismail Khayat, Goran Mohammed, and Hawre Khalid between 2017-2019. Babakr has directed and produced documentaries. His films Red Land and Not for Sale were screened and awarded in different film festivals around the world. Pshtiwan was the editor for SulyOn and founded DidiMn, two Kurdish cultural websites, and his writings and translations have appeared in many outlets.

Translator, Editor
Managing Editor,
Kashkul Books
Jiyar is a translator and editor who speaks Kurdish (various dialects), English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Persian. He specializes in translating Latin American literature into Kurdish and Kurdish literature into various languages, bringing over 100 authors into publication in more than 30 countries. His works have been featured in the Best Literary Translations Anthology, The Wall Street Journal, Poetry Foundation, World Literature Today, Literary Hub, Chicago Review of Books, Your Impossible Voice, Periódico de Poesía, Círculo de Poesía, Buenos Aires Poetry, Revista POESIA, among others. His book-length translations include Juan Carlos Onetti’s novel El pozo, Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s complete stories La ciudad de vapor, Farhad Pirbal’s stories The Potato Eaters and poems Refugiado número 33333, Sherzad Hassan’s novel The Fortress and My Father’s Dogs, Dilawar Karadaghi’s poems My Country's Hair Turned White, and Bachtyar Ali’s novel Mi tío Jamshid Kan. In addition to his work at Kashkul, he serves as an editor for the literary magazine Îlyan and the Balinde Poetry publishing house.

Principal Investigator on the Mosul Maqam Project

Bryar Bajalan is a writer, translator, and filmmaker pursuing a doctorate in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. His work has appeared in Ambit, Hyperallergic, and Modern Poetry in Translation. His short documentary on Baghdadi poet Al-Zahawi won an award at the Tagore International Film Festival. He co-translated Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi’s A Friend’s Kitchen and Zêdan Xelef’s A Barcode Scanner. His recent short film based on Al-Raddi’s poem “The Book of Sorrows” was published in ArabLit Quarterly. Bryar is the principal investigator on the Mosul Maqam Project with Kashkul.

Research Assistant: Mosul Maqam Project with Kashkul

Mahmoud Jumaa is a poet, writer, journalist, and researcher in modern literature. He holds a master’s degree in "Digital Literature" from the University of Mosul. He has authored articles and research on Arabic poetry and literature, the criticism book Textual Transcendences in Sami Hadi’s Poetry, and two poetry collections: What Mirrors Cannot Explain and The Sentence of a Boy’s Biography. A member of the "Sharafat" magazine team, Mahmoud is also a research assistant on the Mosul Maqam Project with Kashkul and is working on publishing Fires of Knowledge - The Destruction of Mosul’s Libraries 2014-2017.

Co-Principal Investigator on the Mosul Maqam Project

Tahani Saleh is a researcher and activist specializing in cultural preservation and human heritage. She holds a master’s degree in Development from the University of Mosul. Tahani led the library rescue team at the University of Mosul and worked on the Mosul Lives project with Kashkul. She also contributed to archiving the works of photographer Mohammed Jawad. Currently, she is a Co-Principal Investigator on the Mosul Maqam Project, focused on preserving and archiving the musical heritage of Nineveh.