Ayşe Şan

Ayşe Şan — Biography

Ayşe Şan is regarded as one of the most influential female voices in Kurdish music and is remembered as the "Queen without a Crown". Coming from the dengbêj tradition, she was also known as Eyşana Kurd, Eyşe Xan and Eyşana Elî. Her best-known songs include Xerîbim Dayê, dedicated to her mother, and Qederê, written for the daughter she lost in Germany.

She came to music through the dengbêj gatherings of her father's household and began singing at local events in 1958. Leaving surroundings that opposed women singing, she went to Gaziantep and sang Turkish songs on the radio, since Kurdish was banned. In the early 1960s she settled in Istanbul, became known through Ez Xezalım and released a first Kurdish-Turkish cassette. Fame increased the pressure on her, and in the 1970s she went to Germany. Facing threats again after returning, she moved to Baghdad in 1979, broadcast as Eyşana Elî, performed in Hewlêr, Mosul and Duhok, and met artists such as Mihemed Arif Cizîrî and Îsa Berwarî. From the 1980s she lived in İzmir and worked for a time at a post office.

She died of cancer in İzmir on 18 December 1996. Her wish to be buried in her birthplace went unfulfilled for years; on 18 June 2025 she was reburied in Diyarbakır's Yeniköy Cemetery. A park in the city bears her name.