Profile A quartet of Turkish authors appearing at LBF Felicity Wood introduces four of the 20 Turkish authors taking part in events at this year’s fair Four of a kind
WHEN YOU THINK of Turkish literature you probably think of either the Nobel prize- winning Orhan Pamuk or the bestselling Elif Shafak, the poster boy and girl of Turkey’s literary scene. But look beyond these two authors and you will see that Turkey has a thriving publishing industry with a host of authors whose works are worthy of English translation. As part of the London Book Fair’s Market Focus Cultural Programme, organised by the British Council, 20 Turkish writers representing a variety of genres will be taking part in events at Earls Court—including Perihan Mağden, the author of 2 Girls, which has been adapted into an award-winning film, Ahmet Ümit, the bestselling Turkish crime writer and author Ece Temelkuran, one of Turkey’s best-known journalists and political commentators who is published in the UK by Verso.
Murat Gülsoy Murat Gülsoy has published 11 books in Turkey so far, including short story collections and four novels focusing on modern literary masters such as Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Umberto Eco, Laurence Stern and Orhan Pamuk. Published by Can Publishing in Turkey, his novel Steal Tis Book is his first to be translated into German (published by Literaturca Verlag) and his latest novel, A Week of Kindness in Istanbul, has been translated into Chinese, Macedonian, Romanian and Bulgarian. Te winner of several national literature prizes, Gülsoy started his literary career as a publisher and a writer of the bimonthly magazine Hayalet Gemi (Ghost Ship); his day job, however, is working as an associate professor in the Boğaziçi University’s Insitute of Biomedical Engineering.
Müge İplikçi Renowned in Turkey for her novels and short stories, which take a contemporary look at the position of women in Turkish society, Müge İplikçi’s works have been translated into many different languages. Her latest novel Civan (Before Teir Time) is the story of Dumrul, a mad policeman who can’t shake off the deaths of those closest to him, who gets a new assignment: finding the abducted daughter of his first flame, Rana— İplikçi’s agent describes it as “a fast-paced crime novel and a scathing social commentary”. Currently teaching at Istanbul’s Bilgi University, she is a columnist at the Turkish paper Vatan, a member of Turkish PEN and for the past three years the chairperson of the Turkish Women Writers Committee.
Ayfer Tunç Also published in Turkish by Can Publishing, Ayfer Tunç has written 10 books and several of these have been translated into other languages—including Croatian, Arabic, Tamil, Swedish and Albanian—but not yet English. Tunç is one of Turkey’s most prolific novelists, her first novel, Cover Girl, was published in 1992 and her 2001 book, My Parents Will Visit You If You Aren’t Busy: Our Life in the 70s, won the International Balkanika Literary Award in 2003. She also wrote the script for the television show “Havada Bulut” (Cloud in the Sky), based on the short stories of Turkish author Sait Faik Abasıyanık, which was filmed and broadcast on TRT in 2003. From 1999 to 2004 she also worked as a chief editor at the Yapı Kredi Publishing House.
Te Market Focus Cultural Programme at Te London Book Fair is curated by the British Council. For more information visit www.
literature.britishcouncil.org
12 THE BOOKSELLER DAILY AT LBF | 16 APRIL 2013
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