Jazra Khaleed

(born 1979), originally from Chechnya, is known as a boxer and poet. He lives in Athens and writes and publishes exclusively in Greek. Khaleed draws a parallel between boxing and poetry: his writing has the attack and punch of the fighter. Much of his poetry is an indictment of the oppression of the people in Chechnya, and the harsh lot of the immigrant in a Greece that offers few opportunities to outsiders. He has in fact remained an outsider to Greek literary circles, unpublished by the mainstream Greek publishers and literary magazines. He has circulated his poetry in samizdat and online, and in the new wave magazine Teflon, where he also works as an editor and translator of German, American and Australian poetry.