About Jazra Khaleed
Jazra Khaleed (1979) is a poet, filmmaker, performer and translator. He lives in Athens and writes exclusively in Greek. His works focus on issues of working-class experiences and cultures, homeland and origin, immigration and war, and are an indictment of racism, social injustice, and classism in contemporary Greece and Europe.
His most recent publications are The Light That Burns Us (World Poetry Books, USA, 2024), Grozni (Kandrra Botime, Albania, 2024), Προλεποίηση (Teflon Books, Greece, 2024), Die Hoffnung hat immer einen Plan B (Moloko Print, Germany, 2023), Requiem für Homs (Parasitenpresse, Germany, 2022) and Requiem pour Homs et autres poèmes (Marges en Pages, France, 2022). His poems have been widely translated and published in Europe, the United States, Australia, and Asia, appearing in The Guardian, The Los Angeles Review of Books, World Literature Today, Lichtungen, Asymptote, Tripwire, Die Horen, Nioques, and other publications.
According to The Los Angeles Review of Books, “[Jazra Khaleed] stands up to fascism by writing and performing Greek-language poetry that is unmatched in technical bravura, emotional depth, and political urgency”. His performances have been described as “possessing the kind of energy that pervades the riots on the streets of Athens” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), “explosive” (Berliner Zeitung) and “wild, energetic and forceful” (junge Welt).
He has won the Soundout! Award for New Ways of Presenting Literature (Germany) and the Crystal Vilenica Prize (Slovenia) and has received residences and fellowships from the Federal Chancellery of Austria, the Kone Foundation (Finland), the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Germany), the International Writer’s House Graz (Austria), the Künstlerdorf Schöppingen Foundation (Germany), the Syros International Film Festival (Greece) and Centrale Fies (Italy).
As a founding editor of the Athens-based poetry magazine Teflon, and particularly through his own translations published there, he has introduced to a Greek readership the works of Amiri Baraka, Keston Sutherland, Etel Adnan, Bert Papenfuß, Safia Elhillo, Ann Cotten, Lionel Fogarty, Audre Lorde, Ghayath Almadhoun among many other American, British, Australian, Arab and German-language political and experimental poets.
His short films have been screened at festivals such as the Ann Arbor Film Festival (USA), VASTLAB Experimental (USA), Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur (Switzerland), Kasseler Dokfest (Germany), Biennial de la Imagen en Movimiento (Argentina), Entrevues Belfort (France), L’Alternativa (Spain) and Cooler Lumpur (Malaysia). They have won prizes at the Paris Festival for Different and Experimental Cinema, the Zebra Poetry Film Festival, the Cadence Video Poetry Festival, and the Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival.
