Matin Shekari

I am Matin Shekari, but I am mostly known by my pen name Tain. A writer who tells stories of the pain and suffering of his people; of struggles that remain unfinished and dreams that are buried in the heart of stone and lead. But at the same time, there is always something in my writings that survives, something that does not die: hope.
My life was formed from the very beginning, between two worlds; one is the city where I grew up, and the other is the village to which I returned. I was born in the village of Melhem, in the province of Salmas, but when I was one year old, due to my father’s work conditions, we

moved to Tabriz and lived in that city until I was 12.
It was in Tabriz that I was first introduced to art. When I was 9 years old, I joined a singing and poetry reading art group. There I learned how to put words together and enjoy the music of words. Professor Mousavi’s free poetry classes were also one of the places that drew me further into the world of literature. Although I was just swallowing words in those days, I still didn’t know that one day I would write myself.
But life always has its own path. Due to economic and cultural problems, I returned to my hometown, the village of Melhem. The world there was different from the world of the city where I had grown up. In this return, it was as if something inside me broke. It was as if I had been split in two; half of me was still walking the streets of Tabriz and the other half was wandering the dirt alleys of the village.
As a teenager, when most of my peers were studying, I worked with a shovel and a pickaxe on buildings in Tabriz and Tehran. My hands became calloused faster than my heart. With each passing day, I felt more and more like something inside me was collapsing, something I

didn’t want to lose.
It was during those days that I took writing seriously. For me, literature became a refuge from all the wounds that the world was inflicting on me. When I read Hafez’s poetry, I realized that it was possible to write from the heart of darkness. The poems of Akhavan Sales, Sohrab Sepehri, and even Shamlu became a light in the long nights of work and fatigue.
Years later, I published my first collection of poems, entitled “Divan Tayn”, thanks to 49 Box Publishing in Sweden. This book included ghazals, masnavis, and new poems.
Gradually, I started writing novels and went to stories that few people had written. Kurdish literature and the history of my people were always in my mind. Something that I had rarely read in books, but I had seen in the mountains and in the eyes of my people.
One of the first novels I wrote was “Latmeh”. This book was about the assimilation of the Kurdish people during the Pahlavi era, a critique of tribalism, and a tale of never-ending pain. For me, “Latmeh” was not just a story, but a retelling of a forgotten history that needed to be told. The book will be published in the coming months by Sib Sorkh Publishing in Tehran.

My writings were influenced by Russian and French literature. Writers like Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Albert Camus played a major role in shaping my philosophical views. But alongside them, Abbas Marouf and Mahmoud Dolatabadi were also among the writers who deeply

influenced my intellectual and literary world.
Writing was not just a hobby for me. I saw literature as a means to shout the truth. For this reason, I have always tried to speak from the people’s lips, about their pain, and about their struggles in my writings.
After “Latmeh,” I started another project. “To Homayoun” is a story about a war-torn refugee from Rojava, who, amidst exile, war, and exile, seeks to find the lost pieces of his identity. This book, like all my other writings, is an attempt to record the stories of those forgotten by

history.
I worked for the monthly Orsi for a while, and during this time I did a lot of research on Kurdish history and folklore. I also met with prominent painters and tried to draw inspiration from other arts to tell my stories.
But what has always been important to me is the real impact of literature. For this reason, I have decided to dedicate the profits from the sale of “Latme” to the treatment of a girl with cancer. For me, writing is not just a personal task, but a social responsibility.
Sometimes I am asked why do you write? Why do you retell your pains over and over again instead of running away from them?
My answer is always the same: “Because we are the forgotten, because we must write so as not to forget. Because if we don’t write, others will write our history differently.” I still have a long way to go. But if one day I have been able to make a difference in even one person’s mind, to make someone think even for a moment, I know that my writing has not been in vain.

Writing for me is more than a hobby or a passion; it is a duty, a duty I feel I have to bear. The history, culture, language and pain of my people have always been a source of inspiration for me, but not in a purely descriptive or nostalgic way, but as raw materials to be transformed into literary form. I believe that literature should not only be a platform for narrative, but also for re-creation, criticism and protest. When I write, I reconstruct history, but not in the way that official historians have recorded it. For me, history is not a fixed set of events, but a living flow that remains in the collective memory, in language, in folklore and in the minds of the people. Writing about Kurdish leaders and warriors is writing about a people who have always lived on the path of struggle, under pressure, betrayal and unequal battles. I bring out from history figures who are often marginalized, characters who are ignored in official narratives. There have also been women who have been less addressed by history. But in my writings, I portray them not as marginal figures, but as the beating heart of the struggle. The war girls of Halabja, women who were not only survivors but real fighters during the chemical bombing and the years of war, have always been part of my writing. These women did not only fight on the battlefield, but also resisted history, against oblivion, and against distorted narratives. I portray them in my literature with the language of existentialism; women who, in the midst of emptiness and death, in search of meaning, shape life with their own hands. They are not just victims of war, but creators of new stories of struggle.
Symbols play a fundamental role in my literature. But these symbols are not artificial or predetermined. Every character, every event, every place becomes a symbol in itself. In “Latmeh”, the village is not just a place, but an allegory of homeland and roots that are under threat. Language is not just a means of communication, but the last bastion of identity. My characters sometimes do not realize how they are becoming symbols, but in the heart of history, in the heart of the narrative, they become a concept beyond themselves.
I use realism as a tool to narrate the truth. But truth is not always objective; truth can be multi-layered and complex. In my novels, history is not narrated as it is recorded, but as it is experienced. This means addressing details that are usually ignored: silent pains, unspoken betrayals, anonymous faces.
Protest is an integral part of my literature. But this protest is not a raw, illogical cry. Rather, it is an analysis of the past, a critique of the present, and a warning for the future. I use history to critique the present because I believe that what we experience today is a continuation of patterns that were formed centuries ago.
Why do I write?
I write because I don’t want to forget.
I don’t want to hear history from others, I don’t want the story of my people to be lost in the middle of official books.
I write because every character, every event, every moment has a meaning to be discovered.
I write because the war is not over yet, words can still fight, there is still a truth to be told.
I write because the Kurds are still alive, they are still fighting, their stories still continue.