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Nedim Gürsel Turkey    PWF 2011

"Writing is perhaps nothing but an illusion. But is also a way of jumping into the void of defying death."

Novelist, essayist and literary critic Nedim Gürsel was born in 1951 in Gaziantep, Turkey. One of the most audacious Turkish authors of modern times, Gürsel has been accused of slandering the the Turkish army-for his short story collection The First Woman, awarded the İpekçi Prize for promoting Turkish-Greek cultural understanding—and for insulting religion in The Daughters of Allah-for which he was recently acquitted in an Istanbul court. Fortunately, Gürsel remains a curse on all ill-kept houses.

As for exile—: after the military coup d'état in 1971—Gürsel left Istanbul for Paris, where he completed his doctoral dissertation in 1979 on Nâzim Hikmet and Louis Aragon. He then returned to Turkey, but the military putsch of 1980, sent him back into exile in Paris, where he presently lectures on contemporary Turkish literature at the Sorbonne and is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

Nedim Gürsel's work includes: A Summer without End, The Conqueror, Return to the Balkans, In the Country of Captive Fish, and Demon, Angel and Communist.

In 2004, Gürsel was named a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.

Nedim Gürsel lives in Paris—with frequent trips to Istanbul.