A Kurdish artist memorialises the experiences of his people
Osman Ahmed trekked with the Peshmerga, armed only with a pencil and a sketch-book
“I REMEMBER IT was so cold and raining heavily,” recounts Osman Ahmed, “and somehow in the mountains it was snowing.” It was November 1985, and Mr Ahmed was making an arduous journey that would lead to an artistic one. He had been trekking across northern Iraq with Kurdish Peshmerga, to escape Baathist persecution during the Iran-Iraq war. Unusually for a militiaman, he refused to carry a weapon and was armed only with a pencil and a sketch-book. Making it across the Iranian border to Tehran, he discovered libraries replete with images of European art. But his subsequent efforts to reach Europe landed him in prison and refugee camps; reluctantly, he went back to Kurdistan.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Remember, remember”
From the February 22nd 2020 edition
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