About Jazra Khaleed
Jazra Khaleed (pen name) is a poet, translator, and filmmaker. He lives in Athens and writes exclusively in Greek. His works are an indictment of fascism, social injustice, police brutality, and racism in contemporary Greece.
His most recent publications are Requiem für Homs (parasitenpresse, Germany, 2022), Requiem pour Homs et autres poèmes (Marges en Pages, France, 2022), The Light That Burns Us (World Poetry Books, USA, 2021) and μα είν' αυτό ποίηση; (Teflon Books, Greece, 2020). His poems have been widely translated for publications in Europe, the US, Australia, and Asia, and have appeared in The Guardian, The Los Angeles Review of Books, World Literature Today, Lichtungen, Modern Poetry in Translation, Glänta, Die Horen 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).
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, Audre Lorde, Lionel Fogarty, 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), Experiments in Cinema (USA), Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur (Switzerland), Kasseler Dokfest (Germany), Entrevues Belfort (France), L’Alternativa (Spain) among others. The film rendition of his poem about the immigrant situation, “The Aegean or the Anus of Death,” won prizes at the Paris Festival for Different and Experimental Cinema, the Zebra Poetry Film Festival, and the Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival.
