Nedim Gürsel: The Conqueror from Paris

A writer and literary scientist, born in Gaziantep in 1951, the author of prose and essays. He studied French literature at the Sorbonne, and after the military coup in Turkey in 1980, he returned to France. Today a citizen of France, he lives in Paris and teaches contemporary Turkish literature. His first published work was a collection of essays “Uzun Sürmüş Bir Yaz“ [A Summer Without End] for which Gürsel received Turkey's highest literary prize, the Prize of the Turkish Language Academy. After the coup, the book was banned for libelling the Turkish army. A similar fate awaited Gürsel’s next book Kadınlar Kitabı [The Book on Women] which was considered pornographic by the military. Among Gürse’s internationally acclaimed books are the postmodern historical novel Boğazkesen [The Conquerorl] and the prose Allah’ın Kızları [The Daughters of Allah] for which he was charged with insulting religious values. “When I write, I write because I want to say something through the text. Writing is my way of existence. Although I’ve lived in Paris for many years, I still write in Turkish. In today’s global world, I consider literature to be international as well,” the writer says.