Selçuk Altun
Encyclopedia
Biography
Born in ArtvinArtvin
-History:See Artvin Province for the history of the region.-Places of interest:* Artvin or Livana castle, built in 937There are a number of Ottoman Empire houses and public buildings including:* Salih Bey mosque, built in 1792...
, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
in 1950, he graduated from the Management Department of Boğaziçi University
Bogaziçi University
Boğaziçi University is a public university located on the European side of the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul, Turkey. It has five faculties and two schools offering undergraduate degrees, and six institutes offering graduate degrees...
. He began work in the finance sector in 1974 and was chairman of Yapi Kredi Bank
Yapi ve Kredi Bankasi
- History of Yapi Kredi A.Ş :Yapı Kredi is the first nationwide private bank in Turkey, established in 1944, and positioned as the fourth largest privately-owned and by asset size in Turkey, with interest in credit cards, assets under management, non-cash loans, leasing, factoring, private pension...
and executive board director of the YKY (Yapı Kredi Publications), where he amassed a personal library of 9,000 volumes and published works by Louise Gluck
Louise Glück
Louise Elisabeth Glück is an American poet of Hungarian Jewish heritage. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2003, after serving as a Special Bicentennial Consultant three years prior in 2000....
and John Ashbery
John Ashbery
John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial...
, before he retired in 2004 to pursue his writing career full time.
“My goal was to write a book by the age of 50,” he says. “Before that, I knew I needed to read, so I read some 4,000 books before I sat down to write. That, more than anything, gave me the confidence I needed.” His first novel Yalnızlık Gittiğin Yoldan Gelir (Loneliness Comes from the Road You Go Down) was published in 2001 and has been subsequently followed by four further novels, a book of essays and a regular monthly column titled Kitap Icin (For The Love Of Books) in the Cumhuriyet
Cumhuriyet
Cumhuriyet is a centre-left Turkish daily newspaper, founded on May 7, 1924 by journalist Yunus Nadi Abalıoğlu. Based in Istanbul, it has been situated since October 17, 2005 in Mecidiyeköy. Cumhuriyet was the last newspaper to leave the old press district Cağaloğlu...
.
“I regard myself as a ‘person who writes’ rather than a ‘writer,’” the author told Today's Zaman
Today's Zaman
Today's Zaman is one of two English-language dailies based in Turkey. Established on January 16, 2007, the newspaper's main competitor is the older Hürriyet Daily News....
, “I do not make a living on what I receive from my books. I transfer all royalties from my books to a scholarship fund I've founded at the university I graduated from. It provides scholarships to successful university students who study literature.” “In any case, Whenever I want to write, I feel the urge to read first.”
“I believe that in both Turkish and world literature, bibliophilic protagonists and narrators in particular do not appear as much as they should,” states the self confessed bibliophile, who maintains he reads far more than he writes, “Besides, these characters do not like showing up in trashy novels that sweep the book market. Yet I believe the elite group called ‘literary readers’ do embrace them.” “In my novels, the setting is as important as the central characters. For this reason, I go on special voyages. These voyages nurture me; each time, I set on the road wondering how that particular voyage will nurture me.”
In order to bring his books to an international audience, the author himself paid for the English translation of his fourth novel Songs My Mother Never Taught Me. This translation, by Ruth Christie and Selçuk Berilgen, was published Telegram Books in 2008 and sold 3,000 copies in the UK, but while the English publisher opted to followed it with Many and Many a Year Ago in 2009 and various German, Swiss, Spanish and Portuguese houses have expressed an interested in buying rights, “the global economic crisis seems to have stopped the process,” and, “Three foreign publishing houses acquired the rights to publish Songs My Mother Never Taught Me, but that was it!”
“There are many reasons for the limited number of Turkish authors and poets translated into English,” Altun stated in an interview with The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, “Sadly Nobel prize-winner Orhan Pamuk
Orhan Pamuk
Ferit Orhan Pamuk , generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish novelist. He is also the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches comparative literature and writing....
's success hasn't yet increased Anglo-American interest in Turkish authors and poets,” before going on to list works by Feyyaz Kayacan Fergar, Oktay Rifat, Yaşar Kemal
Yasar Kemal
Yaşar Kemal, is a Turkish writer. He is one of Turkey's leading writers. He has long been a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, on the strength of Memed, My Hawk....
, Sait Faik, Bilge Karasu, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar was one of the most important modern novelists and essayists of Turkish literature. He was also a member of the Turkish parliament between 1942 and 1946.-Biography:...
, Nazım Hikmet
Nazim Hikmet
Nâzım Hikmet Ran , commonly known as Nâzım Hikmet , was a Turkish poet, playwright, novelist and memoirist. He was acclaimed for the "lyrical flow of his statements"...
as well as Pamuk among his top 10 Turkish books.
English language bibliography
Two of Altun's novels have been published in English languageEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
translation.
Songs My Mother Never Taught Me
Songs My Mother Never Taught Me (TurkishTurkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
title: Annemin Öğretmediği Şarkılar) is a 2007
2007 in literature
The year 2007 in literature involves some significant new books.-Events:*November 19 - First Kindle e-book reader released.*December 11 - Terry Pratchett informs fans on-line that he has been diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's disease.-Literature:...
crime novel by Turkish writer Selçuk Altun republished in 2008
2008 in literature
The year 2008 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 1 - In the 2008 New Year Honours, Hanif Kureishi , Jenny Uglow , Peter Vansittart and Debjani Chatterjee are all rewarded for "services to literature".*June 15 - Gore Vidal, asked in a New York Times...
by Telegram Books in English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
translation by Ruth Christie and Selçuk Berilgen.
Many and Many a Year Ago
Many and Many a Year Ago (TurkishTurkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
title: Senelerce Senelerce Evveldi) is a 2008
2008 in literature
The year 2008 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 1 - In the 2008 New Year Honours, Hanif Kureishi , Jenny Uglow , Peter Vansittart and Debjani Chatterjee are all rewarded for "services to literature".*June 15 - Gore Vidal, asked in a New York Times...
novel by Turkish writer Selçuk Altun republished in 2009
2009 in literature
The year 2009 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*8 October - Romanian-born German novelist Herta Müller wins the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature....
by Telegram Books in English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
translation by Clifford and Selhan Endres.
On-line translations
- Extract from Loneliness Comes from the Road You Go Down at Boğaziçi University.