Abdulkadir Musa

Abdulkadir Musa is a poet and translator. He studied French and literature at the University of Aleppo and social work at the ASH Berlin. He works as a social worker, translator, and cultural advisor. His poetry collection Your Wings Have Taught Me to Fly (Semakurd, Dubai 2007 and AR, Istanbul 2013) was published in Kurdish and has been translated into German, Spanish, French, English, Polish, and Arabic. In 2017 he published a Kurdish-English poetry anthology Kurdish Voices from Rojava, (Inner Child Press, Ltd. USA) in collaboration with Katarzyna Sala. In 2018 he received a grant for non-German authors from the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe for his new project in Kurdish, “The fleeing head and the frightened pillow that has nightmares.”

What brought you to Berlin? Love? World politics? Or was it a coincidence?

Fate, chance, work, and education.

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What do you love about Berlin?

Walking along the Grunewaldstraße and listening to Kafka’s coughing in Grunewaldstraße 13.

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What do you miss in Berlin?

The little room where I was born.

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What is your favorite spot in Berlin?

My balcony with its view of the old town.

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Would you say you are a different person in Berlin? A different translator? And if yes, in what way?

Yes, actually. It’s not a big difference, but it was easier in my homeland—I didn’t need to work twice as hard to be recognized, for example. And I could get everywhere and do everything on foot. Berlin is a big city, and I’m not really a city person.

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Which existing literary work do you wish you had written?

Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell (Original: Une saison en enfer, 1873)