About Jazra Khaleed
Jazra Khaleed is a poet, filmmaker, performer and translator. He lives in Athens and writes in Greek. His work explores working-class experiences and cultures, homeland and belonging, migration and war, and is an indictment of racism, social injustice, and classism in contemporary Greece and Europe.
His most recent publications are Mein Körper ist kein Land (parasitenpresse, Germany, 2026), The Light That Burns Us (World Poetry Books, USA, 2024), Προλεποίηση (Teflon, Greece, 2024), and Grozni (Kandrra Botime, Albania, 2024). His poetry has been widely translated and published across Europe, the US, and Asia, appearing in The Guardian, The Los Angeles Review of Books, World Literature Today, Lichtungen, Modern Poetry in Translation, Tripwire, Die Horen, Nioques, and many 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 been awarded residences and fellowships by the Federal Chancellery of Austria, the Kone Foundation (Finland), the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Germany), the International Writer’s House Graz (Austria), Künstlerdorf Schöppingen (Germany), the Syros International Film Festival (Greece), and Centrale Fies (Italy).
As a founding editor of the Athens-based poetry magazine Teflon, and especially through his translations published there, he has introduced Greek readers to the work of Audre Lorde, Ibrahim Nasrallah, Tongo-Eisen Martin, Etel Adnan, Bert Papenfuß, Safia Elhillo, Barbara Köhler, Lionel Fogarty, and many other political and experimental poets.
His short films have been screened at festivals including 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 the Cooler Lumpur Festival (Malaysia), among others. They have received awards 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.
