Burhan Sönmez
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Burhan Sönmez (born 1965) is a
Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...
novelist from
Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
. He is the President of
PEN International PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide professional association, association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association ...
, elected at the Centennial Congress in 2021. He is also Senior Member and a By-Fellow of Hughes Hall College,
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
. Sönmez is the author of six novels: ''North'' (Kuzey), published in 2009 in
Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
, ''Sins and Innocents'' (Masumlar), published in 2011,
Istanbul Istanbul
', published in 2015,
Labyrinth
', published in 2018,
Stone and Shadow
', published in 2021, an
''Lovers of Franz K.''
published in 2024. He wrote the first five in Turkish, but the sixth in his mother tongue, Kurdish. He received the "Disturbing the Peace" award given b
Vaclav Havel Center
in New York (2017). He was awarded th

in London (2018) for his novel ''Istanbul Istanbul''. ''Sins and Innocents'' has received the Sedat Simavi Literature Prize, and ''Stone and Shadow'' received the Orhan Kemal Novel Award. ''Stone and Shadow'' was nominated for the Premio Strega Europeo (2023) and the Dublin Literary Award (2024). His novels have been published in more than forty countries. Sönmez was the inaugural lecturer of the Trinity Global Humanities Lecture Series (2024) at the University of Cambridge, where he presented the idea of "Homo Artifex", focusing on the meaning of art and its place in the history of human civilisation.


Biography

Burhan Sönmez was born in
Haymana Haymana is a municipality and district of Ankara Province, Turkey. Its area is 2,164 km2, and its population is 26,016 (2022). It is 72 km south of the capital, Ankara. Its elevation is 1200 m. Etymology According to the 1074-dated dicti ...
, near
Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...
, Turkey, in 1965. He grew up speaking Turkish and
Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...
, then later moved to
Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
, where he worked for a time as a lawyer. He was a member of the Human Rights Society (IHD) and a founder of TAKSAV (Foundation for Social Research, Culture and Art). He was one of the founders of daily ''
BirGün ''BirGün'' (''One Day'') is an Istanbul-based Turkish left-wing daily. The paper was founded in 2004 by a group of Turkish intellectuals. The most important point of the newspaper is that it is not owned by any parent company or conglomerate. ...
'', a left-wing opposition newspaper. Sönmez was arrested and detained by the Turkish authorities while a student in 1984, and again while working as a human rights lawyer. In 1996, he was seriously injured following a violent murder attempt by the Turkish police. Following the attack, he left Turkey, eventually ending up in Britain where he learnt English and received treatment with the support of the charity
Freedom from Torture Freedom from Torture (previously known as The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture) is a British registered charity that provides therapeutic care for survivors of torture who seek protection in the UK.
. He is now a dual Turkish-British national. Even though he was interested in poetry and won awards in two national poetry competitions in Turkey, he turned his hand to writing novels. His interest in writing, storytelling and modern literature is rooted in the traditional stories and legends he was brought up with. His unique experience of growing up in a remote village with no electricity, and having a talented storyteller for a mother, has provided perspective, inspiration and material for his writing. He has written for various newspapers and magazines including ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'', ''
Der Spiegel (, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'', , . He translated the poetry book o
''The Marriage of Heaven and Hell''
by
William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...
into Turkish. Sönmez was a member of the judging panel for the 2014 Cevdet Kudret Literature Prize, 2020 Geneva International Film Festival and the 202
Inge Feltrinelli Prize
He lectured in Literature and the Novel at th
Middle East Technical University (METU)
Sönmez lives between
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
and Istanbul.


Literary career


''North'' (Kuzey)

Burhan Sönmez's first novel, ''North'', is the story of a young man whose father leaves when the
protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a ...
is two years old, and returns twenty years later as a corpse. In trying to solve the mystery of his father's death, our hero embarks on a journey to the North in search of his father's
identity Identity may refer to: * Identity document * Identity (philosophy) * Identity (social science) * Identity (mathematics) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film * ''Identity'' (2003 film), an ...
, which at times becomes his own. Eastern
folk tale Oral literature, orature, or folk literature is a genre of literature that is spoken or sung in contrast to that which is written, though much oral literature has been transcribed. There is no standard definition, as anthropologists have used va ...
s and legends have been woven into the story, which questions and reflects the nature of identity, reality and existence. ''North'' could be described as a philosophical
fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, household tale, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful bei ...
. It tells the
myth Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...
s and legends of the East in a realistic fashion, and is based around philosophical debates on existence and love that have a central importance in solving the mystery.


''Sins and Innocents'' (Masumlar)

The second novel by Sönmez, ''Sins and Innocents'', was published in 2011 and received the Sedat Simavi Literature Prize, a prominent literature award in Turkey. The novel tells a story of two people whose paths come across on a foreign land. A woman carries a "book" and believes in poetry. A man, suffering from insomnia, struggles to survive through graves. Each of them has got a secret and a sin. On the day they meet the woman reads his fortune in the "book" and he sings the songs of desert. ''Sins and Innocents'' tells the story of two people whose lives have been running through
Haymana Haymana is a municipality and district of Ankara Province, Turkey. Its area is 2,164 km2, and its population is 26,016 (2022). It is 72 km south of the capital, Ankara. Its elevation is 1200 m. Etymology According to the 1074-dated dicti ...
Plain,
Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...
and Cambridge.


''Istanbul Istanbul''

Sönmez's third novel, ''Istanbul Istanbul'', was published in 2015 and is the story of four prisoners in the underground cells in Istanbul. When they are not being subjected to torture, the four tell one another stories about Istanbul to pass the time. The underground narrative gradually turns into the narrative of the above ground. Initially centered around persons, the novel comes to focus on the city of Istanbul. There is as much suffering or hope in the Istanbul above ground as there is in the cells underground. Like the tales in ''
The Decameron ''The Decameron'' (; or ''Decamerone'' ), subtitled ''Prince Galehaut'' (Old ) and sometimes nicknamed ''l'Umana commedia'' ("the Human Comedy (drama), comedy", as it was Boccaccio that dubbed Dante Alighieri's ''Divine Comedy, Comedy'' "''D ...
'', the novel has 10 chapters. Each chapter is narrated by one of the occupants of the cell. "Istanbul was a city of a million cells and every cell was an Istanbul unto itself.” In every piece, person and event, the novel evokes Istanbul as a city in its entirety. It is a novel that appears political but is in reality about love. It appears to focus on the stories of individuals but is in reality about the city of Istanbul. Rather than being about capital production, the focus is on the city's spatial and spiritual reproduction. In modes of thought suggested by
Althusser Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher who studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser was a long-time member an ...
and
Manuel Castells Manuel Castells Oliván (; born 9 February 1942) is a Spanish sociologist. He is well known for his authorship of a trilogy of works, entitled '' The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture''. He is a scholar of the information society, c ...
, the city of Istanbul is the site of reproduction for pain, misery, melancholy and hope. There are two Istanbuls, one below ground and one above. Yet in reality both are one and the same.


''Labyrinth''

''Labyrinth'' was published in 2018. It is the story of Boratin, a blues singer, who attempts suicide by jumping off the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, but opens his eyes in hospital. He loses his memory and cannot remember why he wished to end his life. He remembers only things that are unrelated to himself, but confuses their time. When he sees the figurine of Jesus and the Virgin Mary he recognises them but he cannot work out whether they lived thousands of years ago or just few years ago. He knows the Ottoman Empire fell, and that the last sultan died, but has no idea when. From the confusion of his social and individual memory, he is faced with two questions. The first is related to the body. Does physical recognition provide a sense of identity? The second concerns the mind. Which is more liberating for a man, or a society: knowing the past, or forgetting it? ''Labyrinth'', embroidered with Borgesian micro-stories, flows smoothly on the surface while traversing sharp bends beneath the current.


''Stone and Shadow''

''Stone and Shadow'', published in 2021, received the Orhan Kemal Novel Award in 2022. It was shortlisted for the Premio Strega Europeo in 2023, and is currently on the longlist of the Dublin Literary Award (2024). It is the story of Avdo, a tombstone craftsman, whose life tells the social history of modern Turkey. His life journey gets involved with many other lives that reflects different cultural backgrounds including Christians, Sunni Muslims, Alawites, Turks, Kurds, Armenians. Avdo's story starts in the city of Mardin as an orphan. He is being protected by an Assyrian man who teaches him the art of sculpting tombstones. He travels from city to city and comes across Elif, the only love of his life, in a small Anatolian village. Avdo's dreams get shattered there when he has to kill two village men. The story opens in the 1980s, during the times of military coup, in Istanbul. The story-line constantly shifts between the past and future. Alongside the contemporary period, the story of different times like Ottoman era, and of different places in the Middle East and Europe eventually creates an encompassing historical map of many different societies. By moving from one scene to another, the story collects all fragments one by one to form a whole picture in the end.


''Lovers of Franz K.''

''Lovers of Franz K.'' (2024) is the first novel written by Sönmez in his mother tongue Kurdish, after writing five novels in Turkish. Kurdish is a language that has been suppressed and despised as a "mountain language" for a hundred years in the region. ''Lovers of Franz K.'' is a thriller of love and literary revenge in the map of Paris-Istanbul-West Berlin and
Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...
, set in the midst of the Cold War in 1968. While the youth uprising sweeps across Europe, a debate about
Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...
appears in student magazines in Paris. There is a secret group that punishes ex-Nazi criminals, and they begin to argue that they should also protect the dead writers and act for their spirit. ''Lovers of Franz K.'' is a story of love and a creative obituary for Kafka.


Reviews

"The book, ''Labyrinth'', reads like a fever dream. Boratin is a listless existential hero who often drifts through his days with an alienation befitting a Camus protagonist."
Sarah Lyall Sarah Lambert Lyall is an American journalist who has long written for ''The New York Times'', currently as a writer at large and including an 18-year period as the paper's London correspondent. Biography Raised in New York City, Lyall attended t ...
, ''The New York Times''). "One of the most exciting, innovative voices." ''Harvard Review''. “His novels are steeped in imprisonment and memory, with echoes of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and George Louis Borges.” Jason Farago, ''The New York Times''. “There’s a Kafkaesque quality to the interrogation – ‘It is our job to assume the opposite of what you tell us,’ the police say – but Kurdish author Sönmez is really interested in the question of who owns literature. … The dialogue-led approach makes the book punchy and fast-moving, and brings some surprising twists before the end.” John Self, ''The Guardian''. “Fact and fiction merge in Burhan Sönmez’s novel about a man out to avenge the wrong done to Kafka … The ‘Kafkaesque’ here is not the critique of an overbearing bureaucracy but Kafka’s often-elided farce and romance; there are even echoes of Kafka’s love letters ... Sönmez playfully expands Kafka’s world in a literary experiment that encourages readers to reimagine the unfinished work of their heroes.” Natalie Perman, ''Financial Times'' "''Stone and Shadow'' has already taken place in the history of the novel as an important work. Burhan Sönmez creates his own original canon with his epic-modern narrative works. He is moving towards being the same for Turkey as Gabriel Garcia Marquez is for Colombia, Naguip Mahfouz for Egypt, Carlos Fuentes is for Mexico, Mo Yan is for China." ''T24 news''. "''Labyrinth'', like many fictional works written in reaction to political oppression, is an allegory that explores the fractured nature of the individual in a society suspended between a rich, complicated past and an uncertain future." ''Washington Independent Review of Books'' "Sonmez’s words are conquering the whole world." ''ADNKronos'' (Italy) "Yes, our country is turning into hell and it is getting more and more difficult to find any light here. That's why you should leave this novel in the public places, forget it in the cafes, read it out loud on the ferries. Let everyone hear Burhan Sönmez’s voice, and get everyone to resist pain and sorrow." Ümran Küçükislamoğlu, ''T24 News'' (Turkey) "Burhan Sonmez opens the door of wounded memory of Kurds. He doesn't have a proclivity for questions of 'Who am I?' or 'What am I?' He asks: Where am I?" Dervis Aydin Akkoc, ''Ozgur Gundem'' (Turkey) "If Yasar Kemal wrote this novel he would keep the same way of wording but it would last hundreds of pages. Burhan Sönmez can be regarded as Yasar Kemal's tight-lipped son." Metin Celal, ''Cumhuriyet'' (Turkey)


References


External links


PEN International pen-international.org

Official website burhansonmez.com

"The last station: Burhan Sönmez on gentrification, fire and protest in Istanbul"
''The Guardian'', 11 November 2016.
"Burhan Sönmez: Istanbul, Istanbul"
BBC World Book Club, November 2021.
"#RivetingReviews: THE WRITERS’ SHOWCASE. EUROPEAN LITERATURE NIGHT 2016 hosted and reviewed by Rosie Goldsmith"
European Literature Network, May 16, 2016. * Sarah Moore
"Announcing Our November Book Club Selection: Labyrinth by Burhan Sönmez"
''
Asymptote In analytic geometry, an asymptote () of a curve is a line such that the distance between the curve and the line approaches zero as one or both of the ''x'' or ''y'' coordinates tends to infinity. In projective geometry and related contexts, ...
'', November 28, 2019. * Elizabeth Grenier
Turkish society shouldn't be left to anti-democrats
''
Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave"), commonly shortened to DW (), is a German state-funded television network, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the Federal Government of Germany. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite tele ...
'' interview, July 18, 2016 * Diego Zandel
Sins and Innocents', by Burhan Sönmez"
(interview), balcanicaucaso.org, April 4, 2014.
"The PEN Ten with Burhan Sönmez"
(interview),
PEN America PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922, and headquartered in New York City, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose goal is to raise awareness for the protection of free expression in the United States and worldwide th ...
, April 5, 2016.
"#RivetingReviews: West Camel reviews ISTANBUL ISTANBUL by Burhan Sönmez"
European Literature Network, May 16, 2016. * Michael Nketsiah
"Book review: 'Istanbul Istanbul' by Burhan Sönmez
''Cultured Vultures'', April 19, 2016.
t24.com.tr - Stone and Shadow a classic

''Hurriyet daily'' - Stone and Shadow
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sonmez, Burhan 1965 births Living people Istanbul University Faculty of Law alumni PEN International Turkish writers