Ece Temelkuran, a prominent and special Turkish author of style and courage
ECE TEMELKURAN was born in Bornova, İzmir on 22 July 1973. After graduating from Bornova Anatolian High School in 1991, she also graduated from Faculty of Law at Ankara University. She started her career as a journalist at CUMHURIYET daily in 1993 and started writing for a magazine called PATIKA, as well.
She did work in many different areas. She was named the journalist of the year by German Government in 1996 for her book named “ALL WOMEN ARE CONFUSED”. Not many could have figured out at the time that this award, in a way, was a signal of the international success to be enjoyed by TEMELKURAN in the coming period. In fact, she did not stop winning national and international prizes one after the other.
In 1997, her research book named “My Son, My Daughter, My State – Mothers of Prisoners from Homes to Streets” was published. She was awarded the “Research Article of the Year” prize by the Chamber of Doctors for the piece she wrote under the title “VIRGINITY TEST IS A CRIME”
TEMELKURAN worked as a correspondent for CNN Turk for a while. She went to Brazil in 2003 and India in 2004 to watch the World Social Forum. After having analyzed the popular movement observed following the economic crisis in Venezuela and Argentina, she published a series of articles under the name of “The Last Tango in Buenos Aires”.
The author also wrote for daily papers such as BIRGUN, MILLIYET and HABERTURK. While working for HABERTURK TV channel, she also presented a program. However she was dismissed on 4 January 2012.
In 2017 she was announced as “the winner of the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book Award” for her first novel translated into English, “Women Who Blow on Knots,” the story of four women on a journey from Tunisia to Lebanon.
Among other important books written by the author we can refer THE TIME OF MUTE SWANS and HOW TO LOSE A COUNTRY which has recently been published.
TEMELKURAN has certainly been a source of pride abroad for Turkey and Turkish authors back at home with her invaluable and very special work so far and all the respect she has enjoyed in the international world of authors. She has been invited to many cultural events to represent her country and always shown the courage and dignity to show the ultimate respect her profession deserves.
And most important of all, she has always stood up for freedom of speech and human rights and played a truly active role with her contribution to efforts to make the world a better place where people can think and express themselves.
