AustLit

Abdul Karim Hekmat was born in Ghazni province in the Jaghori district of Afghanistan. In early 2001 he arrived as an asylum seeker and spent almost five months in Curtin detention centre in WA.

Hekmat has participated in numerous forums, conferences and debates on refugee issues, has participated in the Sydney Writers Festival and has published articles about refugees in Australian newspapers and magazines. He is also a photographer and his exhibtion, 'Unsafe Haven; Hazaras in Afghanistan' was held at the University of Technology, Sydney. Beginning in 2010, Hekmat worked as a youth worker at the Fairfield Migrant Resource Centre. [Source: Alien Shores, p. 210]