“Masoud Barzani has been at the heart of Kurdistan, and this work explores what made him uniquely suited for that position.”
A biography of President Masoud Barzani written by Davan Yahya Khalil is the 2021 annual Best Indie Book Award (BIBA) winner in the biography category.
“I was deeply honored that my book, “The Brink of Freedom: How Masoud Barzani Took Kurdistan to the Edge of Independence,” was chosen the 2021 annual Best Indie Book Award (BIBA) Biography winner,” Khalil said in a social media post.
“This competition is organized by an American company in the United States, where annually over a million books participate, and only 70 books win the different categorized awards.”
According to Khalil, this is the first time a book talking about Kurdish history has won such an international award.
Khalil’s book is a biography of President Barzani—the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) President and former Kurdistan Region President—, and his ongoing struggle to secure rights, freedom, and independence for Kurds.
From his birth in 1946, Masoud Barzani has been a symbol of Kurdistan’s fight for independence, Khalil wrote in his book.
“He has fought for [Kurds] as a peshmerga fighter, led the KDP through some of the most difficult times for Kurdistan, and [was] president of the region in the phases that led up to the independence of 2017.”
“To understand his impact on Kurdistan and its fight for independence, this book seeks to explore the events that made him who he was, and the life of a man who has marked the transition from Kurdistan in rebellion to Kurdistan as a political entity,” Khalil wrote.
“Masoud Barzani has been at the heart of Kurdistan, and this work explores what made him uniquely suited for that position.”
The annual Best Indie Book Award (BIBA) is an international literary contest recognizing outstanding achievements by indie authors, its official website says. “Entries are limited to independently published books, including those from small presses, e-book publishers, and self-published authors.”
Davan Yahya Khalil is an author and journalist, originally from the Kurdistan Region and based in the UK. Having completed a Master’s degree in law, he runs the New Mail publication.
In books such as Kurdistan: Genocide and Rebirth, Kurdistan: The Road to Independence, The Idea of Kurdistan, and The brink of Freedom, he has become a critical voice exploring issues and figures relating to the region, setting them in their historical and political context while exploring the possibilities for their future.
Khalil has written four books on the history of his homeland. The first, Kurdistan: Genocide and Rebirth, was honored as an Award-Winning Finalist in the “History: General” category of the 2015 International Book Awards.
