In Conversation with Burhan Sönmez, acclaimed novelist and President of PEN International

Burhan Sönmez is a Kurdish novelist from Turkey and the President of PEN International, elected at the Centennial Congress in 2021. He is a Senior Member of Hughes Hall College and Trinity College, University of Cambridge. 

Born in a small village in central Turkey, he grew up speaking Kurdish, at a time when the Kurdish language was stigmatised and officially banned in education, then he was taught Turkish at school. He moved to Istanbul to study law in the years following the 1980 military coup. Due to pro-democracy activities, he was suspended from university but managed to graduate after seven years and worked as a lawyer in Istanbul. He joined the Human Rights Society and founded TAKSAV, the Foundation for Social Research, Culture and Art. After he was assaulted and wounded by the police forces he ended up going to exile in Britain where he received long-term treatment with the help of Freedom from Torture Centre in London.

He is the author of six novels. His novels are North (Kuzey, 2009), Sins & Innocents (Masumlar, 2011), Istanbul Istanbul (2015), Labyrinth (Labirent, 2018), Stone and Shadow (Taş ve Gölge, 2021), Lovers of Franz K.(Evîndarên Franz K., 2024). His novels have been translated into forty-eight languages.