“Whatever you are going to write about me, write my name underneath. Write my name. (…) Whenever. Wherever. Because the day will come and we will disappear. You know how many people have disappeared. (…) So many historical people, writings, pieces, things have been lost. And whatever is left, [other] people have appropriated for themselves.” This is what Sinem, a female dengbêj [Kurdish singer/story-teller] from Van, told me during one of the many conversations we had about her singing. Like many other female dengbêjs I met, Sinem, too, regarded her singing as a means to leave traces by way of her kilams – traces that would remain and prevent her from joining the fate of all those individuals whose names and identities she felt had disappeared. This paper seeks to follow the traces women dengbêjs like Sinem were so intent on leaving behind as a means to explore the ways in which Kurdish women imagine themselves as subjects who have a voice – in both literal and metaphorical terms. I argue that the way in which women dengbêjs made use of and imagined their voices indicates a peculiar politically inflected desire for individuality, authorship and recognition that forms part of a distinctly modern understanding of the voice as an expression of the inner self; an understanding, which in turn makes possible the easy slippage between voice, self and agency. At the same time, this is an understanding crucially shaped by the long-standing history of Kurds’ struggle for recognition in Turkey and in particular the role that women have played within it. Based on ethnographic material, I will focus on the ways in which women dengbêjs actually went about leaving traces through using their voices in specific ways. In particular, I will pay close attention to the role technologies like the tape recorder or cell phones – as means for fixation and inscription – came to play in the process of literally “making” traces. By connecting an ethnographic investigation of changing understandings of orality and writing, of original and copy, of improvisation and authorship with an investigation of the transforming understandings of subjectivity on the part of Kurdish women, this paper thus shows how imaginations of the voice and imaginations of the self are closely intertwined.