Kurdish novelist appointed head of international association of writers

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) РThe famous Kurdish novelist Burhan Șnmez was appointed president of the PEN International writers association on Friday.

“We are delighted to announce that award-winning Turkish Kurdish novelist and human rights lawyer Burhan Sönmez is our new elected president,” the organization said in a tweet.

Turkish Kurdish novelist and award-winning human rights lawyer Burhan Sönmez is elected president of PEN International as Mexican-American writer Jennifer Clement, the first woman president to lead the organization, completes her term. Read our statement https://t.co/gV6e6wi0Px

– PEN International (@pen_int) September 24, 2021

The London Foundation PEN International is a global association of writers established in 1921 to promote cooperation among writers around the world.

“Burhan Sönmez will lead our work and reaffirm PEN’s mission over the next six years, in what is the start of our second #Centenary. “

“I thank my fellow PEN members for entrusting me with the future of PEN – an honor and a responsibility that I recognize and will keep in my mind and heart as I fulfill the role of President of our noble organization.” , said Sönmez in his thank you speech.

According to his official biography, Sönmez was born in a small village in central Turkey and grew up speaking the Kurdish language at a time when it was banned from teaching across the country.

PEN International said Burhan Sönmez studied law in the years following the 1980 military coup when he was arrested and tortured.

In addition, as a lawyer working on human rights cases, he has become the regular target of police harassment and court cases. As a result, he was exiled to the UK, where he focused on writing novels.

Among his award-winning books are North (Kuzey, 2009), Sins & Innocents (Masumlar, 2011), Istanbul Istanbul (2015), Labyrinth (Labirent, 2018) and Stone and Shadow (Taş ve Gölge, 2021). He also received the EBRD Prize for Literature in Great Britain (2018) and the Disturbing the Peace Prize from the Vaclav Havel Foundation (2017). In Turkey, he won the Sedat Simavi Literature Award (2011) and the Izmir St. Joseph Best Novel Award (2011), as well as the BUYAZ Honorary Best Story Award (2015).

Sönmez lives between Istanbul and Cambridge and his works have been translated into 42 languages.