ÖMER ZÜLFÜ LİVANELİ, singer, songwriter, author, film director, journalist, politician
Omer Zulfu Livaneli was born in Ilgin, Turkey in 1946. After being held under military detention for three months during the coup of March 12 th, 1971, he had to leave Turkey and move to Sweden. After Stockholm, he lived in Paris and Athens, and he returned to Turkey in 1984.
Livaneli’s latest novel “Leyla’s House” was published in Turkey in May 2006; as of today it’s in its 45th edition and a number one best-seller.
His third novel “Bliss”, published in 2002, also a number one best-seller, made 44 editions, became almost a cult work and is recently adapted to cinema in Turkey. In 2005, “Bliss” was published in Greece and Sweden, and in 2006, it was published in France by Gallimard, in the United States by St.Martin’s Press and in Italy by Gremese. Immediately after its publication in the latter, Bliss was awarded by Barnes & Noble, the biggest bookstore chain in the world, with the annually given “Discover Great New Authors” award due to its “superior literary value”. Bliss will soon be published in Norway by Gylendal and in Netherlands by Prometheus/ Bert Bakker. His second novel “One Cat One Man One Death”, his first novel “The Eunuch of Constantinople” and a collection of his stories titled “A Child in Purgatory” have also been published abroad.
Muhsin Omurca, who’s been living in Germany since 1979 was born in Bursa/Turkey. He’s one of the founding members of the first Turkish cabaret KNOBI BONBON in Germany. He wrote and acted in many plays which are based on Turkish-German relations, identities, assimilation problems and cultural differences.
Funda is a versatile cabaret artist: alert, spontaneous, obstinate and up to date. From time to time provocative on the political and social field, with of course the necessary dose of humor. All qualities, that are in fact indispensable for a cabaret artist.
Turkish cartoonist wins PortoCartoon World Festival grand prize
Turkish-born, U.S. educated Sel Erder Yackley has added another feat to her long list of accomplishments. Her memoirs “Never Regret the Pain: Loving and Losing a Bipolar Spouse,” is in its second printing by Helm Publishing.
Göksin Sipahioglu, the turkish-born founder and first president-general manager of Sipa Press, has been for half a century one of the outstanding figures of photo-journalism, to which he has given some of its brightest chapters.From the Cuban missile crisis to the Prague coup, from the tragic Olympic Games of Munich to the events of May 1968, from Mao’s China to Sinai at war, from Dubcek to Pompidou by way of the closed world of Albania and the accession of Djibouti to independence, few of the events or the giant figures of history have escaped his lens.