literary translation flow from kurdish into persian between 1997 and 2021: a sociological study

This study surveyed the translation flow from kurdish literature into persian over the period of 1997 through 2021 in the context of the sociological-analytic framework, developed and discussed by heilbron (1999; 2000) and sapiro (2007; 2014). to this end, firstly, the national library and archives of iran (nlai) was consulted as the most comprehensive database in iran, which contains nearly all translated kurdish literature into persian, and secondly, personal webpages of the kurdish translators like telegram channels and instagram pages were searched to compile a bibliography. this bibliography included meta-data such as original text titles, author’s name, title of the translated text, translator’s name, publisher’s name, place of publication, year of publication and literary form (genre). the exhaustive list amounted to 160 literary works translated and published throughout the aforementioned period. this bibliography was then analyzed employing pieta’s (2016) model. the findings demonstrate that, while poetry dominated the translation flow, it followed an unstable movement, whereas prose took a progressive and steady growth and was the popular genre among the most prolific publishers and translators. the findings also reveal an unbalanced distribution of translated works among translators, authors and publishers. the conclusions drawn from this study highlight a close affinity among individuals including translators, well-known authors and small-scale publishers working collaboratively and actively in order to promote peripheral literature in a more well-established manner.