Aslı Erdoğan

Aslı Erdoğan was born in Istanbul, in 1967. She has studied Computer Engineering (BS in 1988) and Physics (MS in 1993) and worked as a high energy research physicist at CERN, Geneva and completed her thesis in Higgs Physics there. She quit her doctorate and scientific career in 1995, while she was living and working in Rio de Janeiro. After a 2-year stay in South America, she returned to Istanbul and started to live as a free lance writer.

Since the publication of her first novel, ‘’The Sea-Shell Man’’in 1994, Aslı Erdoğan has written several books: novels, novellas, collections of short stories and poetic prose, and selections from her political essays. She has worked as a columnist and a journalist  since 1998, mostly for RADİKAL,  a left-wing intellectual newspaper and Özgür Gündem, a bilungual paper of Kurdish press, for which she is still writing regularly. She has treated controversial topics as state violence, discrimination and human rights. She has been a human rights activist since 1993. As a result,she has been persecuted in a variety of ways, lost her job more than once, subjected to a lynch campaign and she had to l ive in exile for several years.

Aslı Erdoğan’s books have been translated to several languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Arabic and Bosnian. Parts of her prose has been acted in Milan, Piccolo and choreographed into dance theatre. One of her stories was filmed in France. Her literary work,  to a large extent ignored in her own country, has been treated by over a hundred articles, essays and academic thesis, in majör literary journals and newspapers, all over Europe: Lire,Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemerine Zeitung, die Welt,Neue Zürcher Zeitung, die Presse, Aftenposten etc and by such writers as Orhan Pamuk, Ingo Arend, Ruth Klüger, Eugene Schoulgin. Lire has chosen her amongst the ‘’50 Writers of Future’’, classifying her work as a contemporary classic.    

Asli Erdoğan was ICORN writer-in-residence in Krakow 2015-2016, and returned to Turkey after her residency. In the wake of the failed coup d'etat in Turkey in July the same year, she was detained in Turkey on 17 August, after acting as columnist and stand-in-editor to the Turkish newspaper, Özgür Gündem. 

WORKS AND TRANSLATIONS

TAŞ BİNA/"The Stone Building"
Novel, 2009
Winner of Sait Faik Prize 2010

 Swedish (Ramus) in October 2012

French (Actes Sud) and Norwegian (Gyldendal) 2013

 

KIRMIZI PELERiNLi KENT/ “The City In Crimson Cloak ”
Novel, 1998

Actes Sud, (France) April 2003, titled “La Ville dont la Cape est Rouge”

Gyldendal (Norway), Marg Series, September 2004

Soft Skull (USA), tittled ‘‘The City in Crimson  Cloak ’’,2007

Cadmus (Syria and Lebanon), 2007

Unionsverlag (Germany) , ‘ Die Stadt mit der Roten Pelerine’,February 2008

Bosnian (Buybook), 2010

Swedish (Ramus),2010

Bulgarian (Biblioteka 48),2010

Macedonian and Albanian publications are scheduled for 2013 and 2014.

                            

MUCİZEVİ MANDARİN/ “The Miraculous Mandarin”
Novella,1996

Actes Sud (France),  published May 2006

Ramus (Sweden),  September 2008

Galata (German) September 2008

Buybook (Bosnian) March 2009    

Gylendal (Norwegian) 2010

Soon to be published  in Macedonian, Kurdish , Italen and  Bulgarian (Paradox).

 

TAHTA KUŞLAR/ “The Wooden Birds''
A Collection of Short Stories, 1998

Published as “Holzvögel” in German in 1998 by Deutsche Welle-Onel, translated by

Cornelius Bischoff

Actes Sud(France), 2009

Paradox((Bulgaria), 2010

Words without Borders, USA (2009) and Ord&Bild (2009)

The short story alone is translated to ten languages, including Bieolorussian and Lituanian and Dutch.

 

MAHPUS/ ''The Captive''
Novel, 2009

Words without Borders, USA (2009)

The French translation is made into a scenerio and filmed.

 

HAYATIN SESSİZLİĞİNDE/ “In The Silence of Life”
A Collection of poetic prose, 2005

Translated into Italian by Serra Yilmaz and acted in Milan

“A Call at the Night'' : Parts of  the book, '‘In the Silence of Life’' was published in French by MEET with this tittle as a part of the  scholarship given by MEET.

 Published in Bulgarien in October 2010 by Paradox

 

KABUK ADAM/ “The Shell Man, Novel,1994)

Paradox,Bulgarien 2010

 

BİR DELİNİN GÜNCESİ; BİR KEZ DAHA

“Diary of a Perturbed  Woman”, “Once Again” Collections of essays and political satire, ''Journal de une Detraquee'', in Folio 2006

“Conversation avec le spectre d’un ermite” and “Ali” in M.E.E.T no 8 Pekin (Beijing)/Istanbul

“Le Bruit des Autres” in “Les Bonheurs de Babel”

“La Nuit des Mots” in collaboration with François Daireaux

“Les Oiseaux des Bois” in Etoiles d’Encre

''Dans la Silence de la Vie'' in  Siecle 21, no 8

''Journal de une Detraquee'' , in Folie Issue of Bleu Autour

                

In other languages

Parts from ''In the Silence of Life'' were published in English in the ''Living Together'' Issue of Prince Claus Fund Journal,  and in  Bulgarian and in Indonesian.

Various articles of the author have been published in Danish ('Broen'), English, Bulgarian, Flamish (De Morgen),French, German, Swedish, Dutch  and Armenian. She has regularly written for the political magazine Arena and has published essays in the website of PEN.                    

In German: Holzvögel, 1998

'' GALATA'', a text of poetic prose in Manuscripte, September 2012

'' NACHTZUG'' Lichtungen, 131, 2012

Two texts on exile, for a book of collected essays and prose on exile, University of Graz, 2013