Herediya: (Brokenhearted - in Zazaki dialect]) This song belongs to the district of Erzingan, an Alevi Kurdish area in Turkey Kurdistan where mostly the husbands left the district and went to Germany for better life conditions years ago and either did not return back or married to someone else in Germany. This song is sung by a wife left behind in Erzingan. The wife says “Why did he go to a land which is so far / It is not Erzingan where I can get him / It is not Istanbul where I can go and see him / Germany is very far; Germany is very far.”

Suna Alan is a Kurdish/Alevi singer and journalist based in London. She was born in the mountainous province of Çewlik (Bingol), an ancient Kurdish and Armenian province in Northern Kurdistan (officially Turkey). Her family moved to Smyrna (Izmir) in her early childhood which meant that much of her formative years were spent surrounded by traditional Kurdish dengbêj (*bard) music and Kurdish-Alevi laments within a rich cosmopolitan cultural environment. Since Ottoman times, Smyrna (Izmir) has indeed embraced a myriad of ethnic and religious communities people such as Kurdish, Greek, Albanian, Circassian, Armenian, Sephardic, Christian, Alevi. This led Suna to incorporate stories from many other ethnic and religious identities in her music. Her musical journey led to London where she has been working with musicians from various nationalities. Although her main focus remains Kurdish folk songs from the four regions of Kurdistan namely Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, her repertoire also includes Armenian, Greek, Sephardic and Turkish songs.

As a journalist, she is also involved in fighting many causes including Human and Women’s rights as well as the protection of the environment.



For more info, please visit
www.sunaalan.net