The Kurdish-Turkish author Burhan S\u00f6nmez was born in 1965 in Haymana near Ankara, where he also grew up. His interest in literature was awakened early on by his mother, and he spoke both Turkish and Kurdish from a very early age. S\u00f6nmez completed a bachelor of laws and worked for several years as a lawyer in Istanbul. In 1996, he was seriously injured in a police assault and subsequently received support from the British NGO \u00bbFreedom from Torture\u00ab, which provided him with medical care in London for an extended period of time.<\/p>\n
S\u00f6nmez\u2019 first novel, \u00bbKuzey\u00ab (tr. North), appeared in 2009 and tells the story of a young man whose father vanished when he was two years old. After twenty years, the body is found and the young man makes his way to the north to uncover the secrets of his father\u2019s life and death. S\u00f6nmez\u2019s second novel, the semi-autobiographical \u00bbMasumlar\u00ab (Eng. \u00bbSins and Innocents\u00ab, 2014), followed in 2011. Two political refugees \u2013 Brani Tawo, a Kurd from Turkey, and Feruzeh, a woman who fled from Iran \u2013 meet in a shop in Cambridge. They discover their common love of literature and he tells her tales of his family that evoke old legends: of a shepherd hit by lightening, of injured soldiers returning from war, and of blood feuds that tear families apart. Through his love for Feruzeh, the dark and melancholic Brani Tawo slowly regains a measure of inner freedom. The novel, which was translated into English, Italian, Serb and Macedonian and awarded the renowned Sedat Simavi Prize, blends the world of a small Anatolian village with the atmosphere of an English university town. S\u00f6nmez\u2019 most recent novel, \u00bbIstanbul Istanbul\u00ab (2015; Eng. 2016), has already been translated into 15 languages. In it, \u00bbwe can feel the \u203aDecameron\u2039 by Boccaccio in the novel\u2019s texture, but we can follow footsteps of the \u203aInvisible Cities\u2039 by Italo Calvino in its substance\u00ab (Serap \u00c7ak\u0131r). The novel tells the story of four prisoners locked in underground cells in Istanbul. As a form of survival strategy, they tell each other stories that revolve around the city on the Bosporus; tales that demonstrate that suffering and hope exist within the prison cell as well as outside of it.<\/p>\n
S\u00f6nmez taught literature and creative writing at Orta Do\u011fu Teknik \u00dcniversitesi (ODT\u00dc) in Ankara and wrote articles about literature, culture and politics for independent left newspapers in Turkey. He also translated the poetry of William Blake (1757\u20131827) into Turkish. S\u00f6nmez is a co-founder of the social and cultural organization TAKSAV as well as a member of the International Society for Human Rights. He lives in Istanbul und Cambridge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10588,"template":"","jct-role":[1080],"jct-origin":[551],"jct-ilb-years":[611],"class_list":["post-39230","authors","type-authors","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","jct-role-author","jct-origin-turkey","jct-ilb-years-2017-en"],"yoast_head":"\n