Choman Hardi is Assistant Professor and Chair of the English Department at American University of Iraq Sulaimani, where she founded the Center for Gender and Development Studies. Choman was awarded a scholarship from the Leverhulme Trust to carry out post-doctoral research about women survivors of genocide in Kurdistan-Iraq. The resulting book, Gendered Experiences of Genocide: Anfal Survivors in Kurdistan-Iraq, was chosen by the Yankee Book Peddler as a UK Core Title. Choman is a published poet and was poet in residence at Moniack Mhor Writers Centre (Scotland), Villa Hellebosch (Belgium), Hedgebrook Women Writers’ Retreat (USA) and The Booth (Shetland). She began writing poetry at the age of 20, producing, Life for Us and the moving, Considering the Women, which explores the relationship between immigrants and their homeland, and the plight of women in an aggressive, patriarchal society and as survivors of political violence. The work received a Recommendation from the Poetry Book Society and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best collection. As an academic researcher she has been a visiting scholar in The Centre for Multiethnic Research (Uppsala University), Zentrum Moderner Orient and The Department of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam.

Participated in:

August 2016 Fellowship: Peacebuilding and Women’s Meaningful Participation in Peacebuilding Processes 

August 2019 Fellowship: The Arts as a Tool for Peacebuilding

Beyond Borders International Festival 2019: Considering the Women: Listen as Kurdish poet and translator Choman Hardi reads from her latest poetry collection Considering the Women, a collection exploring the equivocal relationship between immigrants and their homeland. (2019)