Oral Çalişlar was born in Tarsus in 1946. He studied political theory and was among the intellectual leaders of the movement of 68. In 1971 he was sentenced to prison for three years because of his political activities and in 1980 to four years. He has been a columnist for
Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul in 1952. He grew up in the Turkish capital and went to school at an English-speaking college. He studied architecture and then journalism at the University of Istanbul and started to work as a freelance writer. After publishing “Beyaz Kale” (1985; Eng. “The White
Nedim Gürsel was born in Gaziantep, Turkey, in 1951. He published his first novellas and essays in Turkish literary magazines in the late 60s. After the coup d’état in 1971, he had to testify in court for one of his articles. This led to his decision to temporarily reside in
born in Istanbul in 1957, is a social scientist, publicist and women’s rights activist. She studied economics and sociology and wrote her doctoral thesis on Islam in everyday life. She has published numerous books, most recently »The Unholy Family: How Islamic Tradition Deprives Women and Children of Rights « (2019).
The writer, poet, and theater author of Turkish-Arab origin Murathan Mungan was born in Istanbul in 1955 and grew up in Mardin near the Syrian border. His childhood was marked by linguistic-cultural contradictions, many of his Kurdish and Arab relatives were not skilled in Turkish; his father encouraged him not
Karin Karakaşlı, born in Istanbul in 1972, studied interpretation and translation at the Boğaziçi University of Foreign Languages. From 1996 to 2006 she was an editor and head of the editorial department of the Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper »Agos«, and a columnist for its Turkish and Armenian sections. She is currently
born in 1966 in Turkey (Kurdistan) he was awarded a doctorate in psychology from Konstanz and in oriental studies from Göttingen. Since 2013, Kizilhan has been a professor at the Dual University of Villingen-Schwenningen, where he is the director of the degree course Social Work with the Mentally Ill and
Hasan Ali Toptaş was born in Baklan, southwest Anatolia, in 1958. After leaving school, the son of a truck driver, he received higher vocational training in the district town of Çal and following his military service made a living through odd jobs before finding a position at the inland revenue.
Ferit Edgü was born in Istanbul in 1936. He is one of the leading writers of contemporary Turkish literature and has been publishing poems, novellas, reviews and essays in avant-garde periodicals since 1952. His first book, »Kaçkinlar« (t: The Departed), published in 1959, is an account of an adolescent in
Elif Shafak was born in Strasbourg in 1971, the daughter of Turkish parents. After their divorce, she went to live with her mother in Turkey, who later served as a diplomat in Spain and Jordan, taking her young daughter with her. Shafak studied sociology and communications theory at the Middle
Ece Temelkuran was born in Izmir, Turkey, in 1973. Before graduating in law from Ankara University in 1995, she worked as a journalist for Turkey’s oldest newspaper »Cumhuriyet« and in 1996 published her first book »Bütün Kadınların Kafası Karışıktır« [tr: All Women Are Confused], in which she denounces the high
