WBachtyar Ali Muhammed, also transcribed as Bakhtyar or Bakhtiyar, is a Kurdish novelist, intellectual, literary critic, essayist, and poet. Ali started out as a poet and essayist, but has established himself as an influential novelist from the mid-1990s. He has published thirteen novels, and several collections of poetry and essays.
WSharaf al-Din Khan b. Shams al-Din b. Sharaf Beg Bedlisi was a medieval Kurdish Emir of the Emirate of Bitlis. But he is more known as a historian, writer and poet. He wrote exclusively in Persian. Born in the Garmrood village, in central Iran, between Arak and Qom, at a young age he was sent to the Safavid's court and obtained his education there.
WBehrouz Boochani is a Kurdish-Iranian journalist, human rights defender, writer and film producer. He was born in western Iran. He was held in the Australian-run Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea from 2013 until its closure in 2017. He remained on the island before being moved to Port Moresby along with the other detainees around September 2019. On 14 November 2019 he arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand on a one-month visa, to speak at a special event organised by WORD Christchurch on 29 November, as well as other speaking events. In December 2019, his one month visa to New Zealand expired. It has been confirmed that Boochani has not left New Zealand, and remained on an expired visa until being granted refugee status in July 2020. As of July 2020, Boochani is to become a Senior Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Canterbury.
WKemal Burkay is a writer and politician.
WAbdullah Cevdet was an Ottoman-born Turkish intellectual and physician of ethnic Kurdish descent. He was one of the founders of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). In 1908, he joined the Democratic Party which merged with the Freedom and Accord Party in 1911. He was also a translator, radical free-thinker, and an ideologist of the Young Turks until 1908.
WEvin Çiçek: journalist, investigative reporter, author, poet.
WDilşa Demirbağ-Sten is a Kurdish-Swedish author and journalist. She is the Secretary General of Berättarministeriet, a foundation she co-founded together with Robert Weil and Sven Hagströmer in 2011.
WMehmet Nuri Dersimi was a Kurdish writer, revolutionary and intellectual.
WMohammad Ghazi was a prolific, renowned Iranian translator and writer of Kurdish origin who translated numerous books mainly from French into Persian. He wrote/ translated nearly 70 books.
WJalile Jalil, is a Kurdish historian, writer and Kurdologist. He was born in Yerevan to a Yazidi family and studied history at the university of Yerevan and Oriental Academy of Leningrad. He wrote his thesis regarding the Kurdish rebellions in the 19th century. He received his PhD in 1963, and worked in the Academy of Sciences from 1963 to 1993. He along with his brother Ordîxanê Celîl, collected Yazidi religious poetry and Kurdish legends and tales. After the collapse of Soviet Union, he moved to Austria, and taught at the University of Vienna, where he taught Kurdish. He is now working at the Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
WMikdad Midhat Bedir Khan was a Kurdish nationalist and journalist who published the first ever Kurdish language newspaper, Kurdistan, in 1898. He was also a son of Bedir Khan Beg, the last Kurdish Mîr and mutesellim of the Emirate of Botan.
WNûredin Zaza was a Kurdish politician, writer and poet. Zaza was a co-founder of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria and a founding member of the Kurdish Institute of Paris.
WBina Majid Mustafa, known as Bina Qeredaxi, was born in 1988 in Duhok, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. She is a filmmaker and media specialist with over nine years of experience in filmmaking, Television industry and cultural management. Bina has earned her BA in Law and Politics in 2010 at University of Duhok but started her film and media career in 2007 with writing and directing a popular social awareness-raising show named for Kurdistan TV channel, followed by several other TV shows in lead Kurdish channels. In the past years, she worked in different positions in award-winning films such as "Bekas" by Karzan Kadir. She is the co-founder and program manager of Duhok International Film Festival.
WArab Shamilov was a Yazidi Kurdish novelist who lived in the Soviet Union. He was born in the city of Kars in present-day north-eastern Turkey.
WSüreyya Bedir Khan was a Kurdish prince, a descendant of Bedir Khan Beg and a member of the Bedir Khan family.
WShehyan Tahseen, also transliterated as Şehyan Tehsîn,, is a Kurdish news anchor, television presenter, and reporter. She was born in the city of Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan. She started at the age of 11 as a presenter in children programs on Kurdistan TV. During her studies at the University of Duhok, she hosted Tik Tak Show, a social awareness raising program on Kurdistan TV about youth and community interests.
WYekta Uzunoğlu (b.1953, Silvan, Diyarbakır, doctor, writer, human rights fighter, translator and entrepreneur.