Love and Existence: Analytical Study of Ahmadi Khnai's Tragedy of Mem u Zin

This work is a scholarly study of Ahmadi Khani’s Mem û Zîn, the most famous and the most important text of Kurdish classical literature. The study is totally original and is based on methodical in-depth textual analysis of the work with original translations. The author defines the work as an Aristotlean tragedy revealing its unique dramatic elements, scenes, events, structures and characters. It also delves deeper into the Sufist and philosophical levels of the text revealing the astonishing modernist nature and mode of the work as Zoroastrian Existentialism. Dr Mirawdeli offers a line-by-line translation and textual analysis of Khani’s prologues in which he has presented his nationalist discourse offering an original interpretation that establishes Khani’s ideas as a complete theory of Kurdish nationalism.