ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Last Pomegranate of the World, a novel by popular Kurdish novelist Bakhtyar Ali, has been selected among top 100 books of the 21st century by a Swiss newspaper. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), a German-language daily newspaper, ranked Ali’s novel 80th among the top 100 literary works of the first quarter of the 21st century. “The inclusion of our Last Pomegranate [of the world] on this list is a historic pride for our present and the legacy of our literature,” Ali said in a statement on Facebook. The NZZ is the oldest newspaper in Switzerland and its list is considered the German-language equivalent of the New York Times best sellers list, Ali said in the statement. The Last Pomegranate of the World is a riveting tale of war and a mystical bond between a father and his son during the rule of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the oppression of Kurds in the 20th century. The book has been translated into many languages including German, English, Persian, Italian and French. Born in 1960, Ali is one of the Kurdistan Region’s most renowned authors. He has written dozens of novels, essays and plays over the course of his careers, which spans over five decades.
