Displaced from his home by the Islamic State’s attempt to exterminate the Êzîdî, Zêdan Xelef (b. 1995, Izêr) arrived with his family to the Chamishko IDP camp in late 2014. His current projects include translating Whitman’s Song of Myself into Kurmanji.

Xin Xu is a PhD candidate in the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages at the University of Connecticut. She translates classical Chinese prose and contemporary Chinese poetry; her translations of three poems by Yi Sha recently appeared in World Literature Today.