Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference, Izmir
Wednesday 27 February 2:00pm EET
A National Literature?
Keynote by: Sema Kaygusuz with a response by Panos Karnezis.
For more information have a look at the event e-flyer.
Author Biographies:
Sema Kaygusuz is a fiction writer living in Istanbul. After publishing three collections of short stories, which won some of the most prestigious literary awards in Turkey, her first novel Yere Düsen Dualar (Prayers Falling on Earth) was published in 2006. The novel met with unanimous acclaim from both the Turkish and the international reviewers and won the 2009 Ecrimed-Cultura translation award, the 2010 France-Turquie award in France, and the 2010 Balkanika award including six Balkan countries (Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Turkey). Her second novel, Yüzünde Bir Yer (A Place on Your Face), was published in 2009 and praised as the “literary Guernica”. Yüzünde Bir Yer will be published in April 2013 by Actes Sud in France. Her most recent narration, Karaduygun (Melancholic), was published in 2012 and will be published in March 2013 by Matthes & Seitz in Germany. Sema Kaygusuz is also the co-author of the movie script of Pandora’s Box, which won in 2008 The Golden Shell Best Film Award at the San Sebastian Film Festival. (Image credit: Muhsin Akgun)
Panos Karnezis was born in Greece in 1967 and came to England in 1992. He studied engineering and worked in industry, then studied for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. His first book, Little Infamies (2002) is a collection of connected short stories set in one nameless Greek village, and his second book, The Maze (2004), is a novel set in Anatolia in 1922. It was shortlisted for the 2004 Whitbread First Novel Award. Short stories by Panos Karnezis have been broadcast by BBC Radio 4 and have appeared in magazines in the UK and abroad. His novels are The Maze (2004), The Birthday Party (2007) and The Convent (2010). Panos Karnezis lives in London. (Image credit: Vana Avgerinou)