Sema Kaygusuz (born August 29, 1972, in

Samsun Samsun, historically known as Sampsounta ( gr, Σαμψούντα) and Amisos (Ancient Greek: Αμισός), is a List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, city on the north coast of Turkey and is a major Black Sea port. In 2021, Samsun reco ...

, Turkey) is a novelist, playwright, essayist, and short story writer from

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. Her work has been translated into English, Italian, German, French, Swedish, and Norwegian. She won a Yunus Nadi Award in 2016 for her novel ''Laughter of the Barbarian''. Among other accolades, she is a recipient of the Cevdet-Kudret-Literature Award, the France-Turquie Literary Award, and was named laureate of the German Friedrich Rückert Prize. The English translation of her novel ''Yüzünde Bir Yer (Every Fire You Tend)'' won both the

TA First Translation Prize The TA First Translation Prize was established by Daniel Hahn in 2017 and is awarded annually to for a debut literary translation, to be shared equally between the first-time translator and their editor. About the prize The prize was established ...

and an

English PEN Founded in 1921, English PEN is one of the world's first non-governmental organisations and among the first international bodies advocating for human rights. English PEN was the founding centre of PEN International, a worldwide writers' associati ...

Award. She currently resides in Istanbul. As a screenwriter, she co-wrote the screenplay for the 2008 film

Pandora's Box Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology connected with the myth of Pandora in Hesiod's c. 700 B.C. poem ''Works and Days''. Hesiod reported that curiosity led her to open a container left in the care of her husband, thus releasing phys ...

(Turkish: Pandora'nın Kutusu) with director

Yeşim Ustaoğlu Yeşim Ustaoğlu (born 18 November 1960) is a Turkish filmmaker and screenwriter. Life and career Ustaoğlu was born in Kars, Sarıkamış and grew up in Trabzon on the Black Sea. After studying architecture at Karadeniz Technical University sh ...

Selected works

In Turkish

* Ortadan Yarısından (short story), 1997 * Sandık Lekesi (short story), 2000 * Doyma Noktası (short story), 2002 * Esir Sözler Kuyusu (short story), 2004 * Yere Düşen Dualar (novel), 2006 * Yüzünde Bir Yer (novel), 2009 * Karaduygun (short story), 2012 * Barbarin kahkahasi (novel), 2016 * Aramızdaki ağaç yazılar (essays), 2019

Translated works

* Wein und Gold Roman, translated by Barbara Yurtdas and Hüseyin Yurtdas (

Suhrkamp Verlag Suhrkamp Verlag is a German publishing house, established in 1950 and generally acknowledged as one of the leading European publishers of fine literature. Its roots go back to the "arianized" part of the S. Fischer Verlag. In January 2010 the ...

, 2008) * La chute des prières: roman, translated by Noémi Cingöz (

Actes Sud Actes Sud is a French publishing house based in Arles. It was founded in 1978 by author Hubert Nyssen. By 2013, the company, then headed by Nyssen's daughter, Françoise Nyssen, had an annual turnover of 60 million euros and 60 staff members. ...

, 2009) * Ce lieu sur ton visage: roman, translated by Catherine Erikan (Actes Sud, 2013) * En bønn faller til jorden, translated by Cora Skylstad (Cappelen Damm, 2015) * Platsen i ditt ansikte, translated by Ulla Bruncrona (Ersatz, 2015) * The Well of Trapped Words, translated by Maureen Freely (

Comma Press Comma Press is a publishing house based in Manchester, United Kingdom, that publishes short story anthologies and single-author collections in paperback and eBook formats. History Comma Press was founded in 2002 by Ra Page, a former editor at Ma ...

, 2015) * L'éclat de rire du barbare, translated by Catherine Erikan (Lettres turques, 2017) * Every Fire You Tend, translated by Nicholas Glastonbury (Tilted Axis Press, 2019) * La risata del barbaro, translated by Giulia Ansaldo (Voland, 2020) * The Passenger: Turkey (

Europa Editions Europa Editions is an independent trade publisher based in New York. The company was founded in 2005 by the owners of the Italian press Edizioni E/O and specializes in literary fiction, mysteries, and narrative non-fiction. Europa has published ...

, 2021)

References

Living people Turkish novelists 21st-century Turkish women writers Turkish women novelists 1972 births {{turkey-writer-stub