Dilan Qadir
Dilan Qadir is a Kurdish-Canadian writer. In 2023, he was awarded the PEN Canada-Humber College Writers-in-Exile Scholarship. Qadir was selected as a 2025 WT Rising Star by Rabindranath Maharaj. He lives in Vancouver where he is working on a collection of short stories that delves into the lives of Kurdish immigrants and refugees in Canada.
Writers & Books
Award History
2026 - Finalist
RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers
Jury Citation
“Like the essentials of a life fitted into a luggage, Dilan Qadir’s words are selected with prudence, resulting in meticulous prose that is at once sparse and full. Every sentence delicately and masterfully immerses the reader in the small joys and the enormous fears and silences of an immigrant’s world where time moves fast, the flowers of a home left behind sprout in memory, and old familial bonds crack under the pressure of adapting to new beginnings. Yet a mother’s sacrificing love for her child endures, and so does her desire for the promise of human connection, making ‘Interpreter of Afflictions’ highly timely and important.”—2026 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers Short Fiction Jury (Jamaluddin Aram, Jen Neale, Nathan Whitlock)Program History
2025
Rising Stars
Selected by
Rabindranath Maharaj
Citation
“In these fraught times, it’s a marvel to discover and engage with voices like Dilan Qadir. His writing, which spans many worlds, could easily have turned to other directions; instead, it is infused with a layered compassion for the places he has left behind, and a genuine curiosity about his more recent experiences. Qadir’s keen observational eye, his ability to blend humour and trauma, his understanding of the historical forces that shape our world, and the authenticity of his writing all evoke admiration. He is a writer to watch and if he continues on his current path, I suspect his writing will be immeasurably useful to anyone interested in dislocation and the reassembling of identities. I look forward to working with him.”—2025 WT Rising Stars selector Rabindranath Maharaj