Ronya Othmann was born in Munich, Germany, in 1992 to a Yezidi father and a German mother. Currently a university student, she writes essays, prose, and poetry. Her literary work has garnered her numerous awards, including the Open Mike Poetry Prize, the Usedom Literature Prize, and the Caroline Schlegel Essay Award. In 2020, she published her debut novel, The Summers, which won the Mara Cassens Prize. In 2021, she earned further recognition for her poetry anthology Crimes. Her most recent book, Seventy-four, was published in 2024. 

The Summers

In her first novel, The Summers, Ronya Othmann introduces Layla, a young woman named after Layla Qasim. Layla is raised near Munich but visits her Yezidi Kurdish family in Syria every summer. Layla’s father once lived in a Kurdish village on the Turkish border and endured the fate of the so-called “Al-Hasakah foreigners” – Kurds denied Syrian citizenship or stripped of it by the Syrian Ba’athist regime. Arrested, he fled to Germany in the 1980s. During her visits, Layla experiences the simple, innocent life in the village despite the challenges the villagers face, including racial discrimination in nearby cities like Qamishli. She is enchanted by the small joys and gains insights into Kurdish life.

Layla, who is learning Kurdish from her father, is bewildered when she is prevented from speaking the language at Syrian airports and by the ubiquity of the portraits and photos of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad – at her age, she is not even familiar with her own German president or politics more broadly. Meanwhile, her German mother finds joy and warmth in the village, shedding her usually strict demeanor. However, these moments of happiness are abruptly interrupted in 2014 when ISIS sweeps through the region, targeting Yezidi villages in a brutal campaign. From Germany, Layla feels helpless as she watches her father’s anguish over the terrifying news of their family’s plight.

Layla’s family does what they can to help from afar, including facilitating her grandmother’s relocation to Germany. This return to her roots helps Layla reconnect with her extended family and their Yezidi traditions, though her grandmother struggles to adapt to her new environment. In exile and cut off from her homeland, she slowly withers away, longing for the orchards and neighbors she left behind. 

Seventy-four 

In her novel Seventy-four, Othmann revisits the Yezidis’ harrowing history of persecution, specifically focusing on the genocide inflicted upon them by ISIS, which the Yezidis refer to as the faraman. The title, Seventy-four, references the fact that the attack by ISIS was the 74th genocidal campaign in Yezidi history. This atrocity has been recognized as a genocidal crime by Germany, where the largest Yezidi diaspora lives.

Drawing from her personal observations during a visit to refugee camps in Kurdistan, Othmann crafts a realistic narrative devoid of fictional embellishments. She lets the victims’ voices guide the story, providing their testimonies directly to the reader and refraining from editorial intervention. Her narrative also addresses the return of ISIS criminals to Germany, particularly German women brought back from detention camps with their children, who were born during the so-called caliphate.

Through this unflinching work, Othmann brings the German audience closer to the plight of the Yezidis, giving a voice to their suffering while exposing the brutality of ISIS. Her book stands as another testament to her commitment to bringing the Kurdish cause to the fore and advocating for the Yezidis’ right to a dignified and free existence. 

Crimes 

Othmann released her first poetry collection, Crimes, a year after her debut novel. As the title suggests, the collection confronts atrocities committed against humanity, focusing on the tragedies endured by the Kurdish people. The poems capture the sorrow and anguish of regions like Afrin, Mosul, and Nineveh, where Kurds have been victims of both regional and global conflicts. With unflinching and poignant language, her poems resonate deeply, bearing witness to the wounds inflicted by these “crimes.”

One of the standout poems in the collection, titled “Countdown to the Explosion,” illustrates the power of Othmann’s words:

You should read the stones

Upside down. To begin at the domes, the domes are daughters of the sun,

sun rays. But the dome collapsed, the dome without a column and without a base.

After the explosion, it fell three meters and ten centimeters more.

If you count the number of pebbles to reach the building,

The result will be a temple.’

Othmann holds society and humanity accountable for treating these crimes as if they were normal occurrences. In “Burning Trees,” she laments:

‘It’s like we don’t know

anything.

As if we don’t know, nature is forbidden despite everything, 

and the sky is still a lie.

Its blue is flawless. 

This is what can be said about it.’

Kamaran Hoc is a Kurdish writer and translator based in Germany. He has translated numerous books and novels from German to Arabic.