We're excited to announce our first fundraiser to help kickstart Henar Press! We have a lot of projects in mind and need your help bringing them to fruition.

We're an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit press based in Columbus, Ohio, dedicated to publishing experimental Kurdish writing from emerging and established writers from the homeland and diaspora.

Running a publishing press is very resource-heavy, and the first few years are the most fiscally challenging. We've had a presence at Stanford's Kurdish Literary Studies conference, the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani's Kurdish Studies Forum, and RAWIFest 2025.

Your support, however the amount, would guarantee that we wouldn't have to compromise on our vision for providing Kurdish literature the platform it deserves.

I'd like to tell you about some of the works we're excited to publish. Our first three novels are going to be English debuts from decorated writers who have had their works published in Turkish, Spanish, Italian, French, Kurmanji, and Arabic. We're also working on the first anthology of contemporary Kurdish plays in English, titled "Who's Afraid of Kurdistan?" We're so glad to be supporting Kurdish playwrights from all around the world. And lastly, we plan to reveal the very first bilingual Kurdish literary magazine based in North America at the end of this year.

For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to create a community for Kurdish writers, translators, and readers, to inspire more Kurds to engage in our people's literature. I've known that the availability of books by Kurdish writers in English doesn't reflect the quantity (and quality) of works that are really out there, mainly because many publishers don't see the miracle that is Kurdistan persisting throughout censorship, genocide, and erasure. Right after I started Henar, I knew for a certain this was the case. We've received incredible submissions from some of the most celebrated writers that have been queried to other publishers for years but were turned down due to the difficulty in selling Kurdish literature to the general public. I feel so fortunate to be among the first presses to change that.