Literature, a dialogue with the best minds of the day

Vana Hama | Literature | 2022-09-19

Translated from Kurdish to English by: Agora Warger

I think if we try to immerse ourselves into the importance of literature through a question, then your thoughts will be better acquainted with the essence of the subject. 

So, what is literature and how does its value stand out amongst other genres? If it occupies your mind with a novel, a story, or a poem about two lovers and then shocks you with a tragedy; if it takes you through the narrow and dark paths of the history of previous nations; if it confronts you with the sinister thoughts of societies before you, the disasters, the destruction and the creation of many civilizations, wouldn't that be enough to make literature valuable?

Let's think a little bit about that ocean of literature. Let us examine Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which shine bright among all the other stories out there, and are set in modern-day Greece. In the Iliad, a girl named Helen falls in love with a brave foreigner named Paris. But the love between these two faces many obstacles and hardships. After all, Helen was a married woman, yes I say married! When Homer discusses the escape of these two lovers to present-day Turkey, it tells the story of the conflict between Greece and Turkey. If we look objectively beyond the romantic side of the story, we can clearly draw many themes from this story. 

If literature is when a poet preserves important events of history in his poems and ponders over the future, the state of humanity, and even his thoughts, just like how the poet Sherko Bekas cries out about the homelessness, displacement, and occupation of his nation, when he says:

Ever since there was migration, I've been migrating

Ever since there was fire, I've been burning

Ever since there was water, I've been drowning

Ever since there was a blade, I've been a victim

If literature is the lightning bolt that strikes the dusty sculptures settled in your mind; a water spring from which you can always acquire something, raising questions about how and why we are here; if the printed pages of the literary books available to you take you to a deeper understanding of who we are; if literature is what John Andrew Sutherland says in a history book talking about literature: if we read it carefully, then we find ourselves in a dialogical relationship with the smartest minds of our time and of the past; what better way is there to dialogue with the smartest minds of the day?

Now by understanding the nature of literature and the importance of foreign literature, we can answer your question! You too should introduce yourself to international and foreign literature just like how Agora Vision works to introduce Kurdish literature to the peoples of the world through both Agora Voice and Agora Warger.