A Life Devoted to the Kurds: Joyce Blau, 1932–2024

Abstract

Joyce Blau (1932–2024) was for many years the sole professor of Kurdish in Western Europe as well as a strong supporter of the struggle for cultural and political rights of the Kurds. Her engagement with the Kurds owed much to her background of political activism as an Egyptian Jewish anti-Zionist leftist and general solidarity with anticolonial movements. As a scholar of Kurdish language and literature based in France, she constituted a link between the older generation of Kurdish scholars in imperial service and the younger generation of scholars emerging from or in close contact with the Kurdish diaspora. She played a role in organizing networks of scholars in academia as well as in institutions of the Kurdish diaspora such as the Kurdish Institute of Paris.