Kurdish author Kaziwa Salih appointed 2014 PEN Writer-in-Residence at George Brown College

TORONTO, Dec. 20, 2013 /CNW/ - Kurdish writer Kaziwa Salih has been chosen as the 2014 PEN Writer-in-Residence in the Centre for Preparatory and Liberal Studies at George Brown College.

Born in Iraqi Kurdistan, Salih moved to Toronto in 2003. She is currently a post-graduate student at York University where she has already obtained a BA in Communication and an MA in Culture and Genocide studies.

Salih is the publisher and editor of two Kurdish magazines. In 2010 she founded the Anti-Genocide Project to bring together the voices of genocide victims living in Canada. She is the author of 12 books and has received several international awards, including the 2013 Naguib Mahfouz Award for the Novel and Short Story from the Egyptian Ministry of Culture.

Salih has participated in a number of international workshops and conferences, most recently a field study on the Holocaust with York University and "The Women of the Middle East" conference on agency and activism with Albany State University of New York. She has been a member of PEN Canada's Writers in Exile network for several years.

Background:

PEN Canada is a nonpartisan organization of writers that works with others to defend freedom of expression as a basic human right at home and abroad. PEN Canada promotes literature, fights censorship, helps free persecuted writers from prison, and assists writers living in exile in Canada. PEN Canada's Writers in Exile program helps authors and journalists who have been silenced in their country of origin to establish themselves in Canada. A decade ago PEN Canada established the Placement Program to engage exiled writers in literary and academic communities in Canada. George Brown College has partnered with PEN Canada's Writers in Exile since 2004. 

George Brown College in Toronto has established a reputation for equipping students with the skills, industry experience and credentials to pursue the careers of their choice. The college offers programs from its three campuses located across the downtown core, including its newest location at the Toronto waterfront, which opened in September 2012. George Brown offers 135 full-time programs and 189 continuing education certificates/designations across a wide variety of professions to a student body of over 24,800 (full-time equivalent) students, including over 3,200 international students; and over 61,000 continuing education registrants. Students can earn certificates, diplomas, postgraduate certificates, apprenticeships and degrees.

SOURCE: PEN Canada

Juanita Bawagan, PEN Canada, [email protected], 416-703-8448 ext. 21