Our People
ئــێـــمـــە
Dr. Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse
Alana is Assistant Professor of English at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), and founder of its arts and culture center, Kashkul. A poet, translator, and Kurdish literature scholar, she has translated numerous Kurdish works into English, including Kajal Ahmed’s Handful of Salt, Abdulla Pashew’s Dictionary of Midnight and Farhad Pirbal’s The Potato Eaters. In 2022, she received an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship for her translation of Hero Kurda’s I Write Yousif.
Shene Mohammed
Shene is a translator and teaches literary translation. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani, and an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa. She has served as managing editor of Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation. Her writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry, World Literature Today, M—Dash, and Modern Poetry in Translation. She is the Board Outreach and Translation Officer at Henar Press.
Pshtiwan Babakr
Pshtiwan is a filmmaker, graphic designer, curator and translator. He graduated from the American University in Sulaimani, majoring in IT and minoring in English Literature. He has managed the visual arts archive at Kashkul and curated exhibitions for Ismail Khayat, Goran Mohammed, and Hawre Khalid. His films Red Land and Not for Sale were screened and awarded in different film festivals around the world. Pshtiwan was an editor of SulyOn and co-founded a platform dedicated to circulating the cultural expressions of the region, DidiMn.
Jwamer Ali Jola
Jwamer is an International Relations student at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. He has worked on projects in policy, education, and institutional development through constitutional drafting, and turning theoretical concepts into tangible, measurable outcomes. His experience includes supporting structural initiatives, research and documentation, and program coordination. Most recently, he has served as Project Manager for the E-Rahenan project, a collaborative initiative between the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Education, UNICEF, and the Bradost Educational Network focused on developing teachers’ professional skills across Kurdistan.
Jiyar Homer
Jiyar is a translator and writer. He speaks Kurdish, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Persian, and translates Latin American literature into Kurdish as well as Kurdish literature into various languages. His book-length publications include works by Juan Carlos Onetti, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Farhad Pirbal, Sherzad Hassan, Dilawar Karadaghi, and Bachtyar Ali. He is a member of Kurdish PEN, and serves as an editor for the literary magazine Îlyan.
Bryar Bajalan
Bryar is a multidisciplinary artist and the project lead for Mosul Maqam. His interests span poetry, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and oral history. Currently, He’s working on a doctoral project centred on a collection of stories exploring love and intimacy in Mosul.
Our Interns
فێــرخوازانی ئـــێمە
Dina Sirwan
Dina Sirwan is an emerging literary translator, musician and archivist. She is a law student at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), and an intern at Kashkul, the Center for Arts and Culture. A passionate enthusiast of literature, arts, and culture, her interests have complemented her role in cultural preservation and community building. She is aiming to dive deeper into the world of translation and contribute to a greater cause.
Yasir Talal Ahmed
is an entrepreneur and a Business Administration student at the American University, Sulaimani (AUIS). An award-winning innovator, he combines hands-on experience from technology ventures and cross-sector collaborations with a deep passion for preserving Mosul’s intangible cultural heritage. As an intern on the Maqam Mosul Project, he serves as a researcher, translator, and media team member. He uses his skills in project management and strong ties with local institutions to support archival workflows. His work advances the project’s mission to document and safeguard the city’s maqam tradition and wider musical heritage
Hajir Firas
Hajir is a medical laboratory science major with a minor in Business Administration at the American University in Sulaimani. She has over ten years of experience as an artist and two years of professional work in graphic design, combining her creative background with digital media expertise. Hajir has participated in numerous art exhibitions in both Mosul and Sulaymaniyah, showcasing her work to diverse audiences and contributing to the local cultural scene. In addition, she has served as a graphic designer and social media designer for the Mosul Magma project, where she created impactful visual content that highlights community and creativity. Her multidisciplinary background in science, business, and the arts reflects her ability to merge creativity with strategy in innovative ways.
Ghada Waadallah
Ghada Waadallah is a Software Engineering student minoring in Law at the American University in Sulaimani (AUIS). As an intern at Kashkul, she works on graphic design, metadata organization, and translation. With a strong interest in visual art and digital design, Ghada enjoys exploring how technology can be used to support creative expression and cultural preservation. Alongside her studies, she is building experience in programming, design tools, and collaborative projects, aiming to connect her passion for art with her technical background in innovative and impactful ways.
Scholarship Students
شایستەی خوێندن
Faeza Ilyas
Faeza Ilyas is an English Literature major at the American University of Iraq, Sulaymani (AUIS), and holds a diploma in Accounting from Shekhan Technical Institute. She teaches English and Kurmanji at Derabun Learning Center in Zaxo. She has worked as an oral historian on the Shingal Lives project with Kashkul. She has also worked with local and international organizations supporting displaced people and refugees. Currently, she works as a community researcher, collecting and documenting stories from Yazidi heritage to help preserve cultural identity, a passion born from her focus on handicrafts, knowledge creation and knowledge sharing within her community.
Iman Ahmed
Iman Ahmed is an English Literature student at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), and joined Kashkul in 2025 to further engage with her interests in poetry, reading, and writing. Iman is a singer and daf player at the Mirzo Music Institution in Shingal, where she has been performing since 2022.
Henadî Bedel
Henadî Bedel is a musician among the Mirzo Music band based in Shingal and a member of the Iraqi Artists Syndicate. She taught musical theory at Mirzo Music Foundation and collaborated in many concerts and festivals in Iraq and Kurdistan. Alongside her passion towards music, she is also a football player who played in many local football teams. She participated in peace-building and advocacy course at House of Coexistence in Shingal to gain more knowledge for building a stronger community after the genocide that ISIS committed against Yazidis in Sinjar in 2014. After her school, she started to continue her passion in English Literature at AUIS to be able to translate her emotions, and her community to the world in artistic ways.
Khairi Adola
Khairi Adola is a Shingal-based musician and poet, and a member of the Iraqi Artists Syndicate. He completed a three year musical training and festival performances in Syria, followed by academic study at the Mirzo Music Institution in Iraq. He has collaborated with the German band Jazz, and has performed at arts festivals in Armenia. Khairi is the founder of Galwaz Band, Shingal’s first children’s musical ensemble, dedicated to promoting peace and trauma recovery. He is currently enrolled in the Academic Preparatory Program (APP) at AUIS and plans to study English Literature to support cross-cultural translation and artistic exchange.
Ghazala Harbo
Ghazala Harbo is a Kashkul scholarship student from the Shingal region. She completed her schooling in Shingal and joined Kashkul in 2025 to pursue her interest in law at AUIS, with the aim of studying the Yazidi cause following the genocide against the Yazidi community in 2014. She is currently studying in the Academic Preparatory Programme at AUIS.
Fehedê Herbo
Fehedê Herbo is a musician, songwriter, translator, poet, and co-founder of Al-Hikaya Organization for Art and Culture, and the Mirzo Music Institution in Shingal, the first musical institution in the area, which seeks to support healing from trauma through music. Herbo writes songs to inspire a new generation within the Yazidi community to preserve the culture and identity of Yazidism. After earning a diploma in music in Rojava, he became an oral historian with the Shingal Lives Project at Kashkul. He currently studies English literature at AUIS. Herbo has participated in musical festivals in Iraq, Syria, Germany, South Africa, and Jordan. He has translated poems between Arabic, English, and Kurdish.
Artist in Residence
میوانی کەشکۆڵ
Shook
Shook is a poet, translator, publisher and fimmaker whose most recent translations include Jorge Carlos Fonseca’s Pigs in Delirium (Insert Press) and Mario Bellatin’s Mishima’s Head (Hanuman Editions). Since living for two years in Kurdistan, they have collaboratively translated over a dozen writers into English and Spanish. Founder of Phoneme Media, they direct Kashkul Books in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and avión at Gato Negro Ediciones in Mexico City.
Ismail Khayat
Khayat was an artist of international renown. He received local and global attention for his painting and advocacy for peace between Erbil and Sulaimani after the Kurdish Civil War (1994-1996). He graduated from Baquba Teachers Training School in 1966 and continued on to work as an artist and art teacher in various schools throughout Sulaimani.
Zêdan Xelef
Xelef is a poet, translator, and archivist. They grew up in the Yazidi community of Shingal Mountains. They are the co-creator of Tew Tew, an oral history archive with a mission to conserve the endangered Yazidi oral traditions in response to the Yazidi genocide. They’re the writer of “A Barcode Scanner” (Kashkul Books 2021/Gato Negro Ediciones 2022) and co-editor and co-translator of “Something Missing from This World: Contemporary Yazidi Poetry” (Deep Vellum, August 2024).
Jon Bullock
is an ethnomusicologist and Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame. He specializes in Kurdish music, focusing on how sound technologies and colonial power have shaped musical traditions. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
