Murat Uyurkulak: Fury and Passion

The writer and political activist, unforgiving critic of dark chapters of Turkish history, born in Aydın on the Aegean coast. A university dropout, Uyurkulak worked as a waiter, technician, translator, journalist and publisher. He was active in the left-libertarian and internationalist socialist political party, The Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP), promoted women’s rights and the protection of the environment, wrote about international politics for the independent newspaper Birgün. His books, restless, angry, piercingly critical, and at the same time of exceedingly artistic quality, stand strongly against the Turkish military and oppression of the Kurds. His two successive novels Tol [Tol: A Revenge Novel] and Har [Har: An Apocalyptic Novel] are impressive literary testimonies about the last three decades of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict. In 2017, he has been sentenced to 15 months in jail with suspension for his work for a pro-Kurdish opposition newspaper Özgür Günde [Free Agenda]. “If books can make people stop and think, that by itself is a great accomplishment,” he says.