Suzan Samanci reading

Suzan Samancı was born in Diyarbakır, Kurdistan, and published her first poems in the magazine “Sanat Olayı” in 1985.

She was a columnist for the newspapers Demokrasi, Gündem, Özgür Politika and Taraf from 1995 to 2011. She has also written political articles on art, aesthetics, women’s rights and the Kurdish question. Her first book of stories “Eriyip Gidiyor Gece” was published in 1991 under her own steam. She made her real debut with her storybook “Resin Smelled Hêlîn”. Her stories and novels have been published by Turkey’s leading publishing houses. Her stories have been translated into German, Spanish, Italian, Flemish, Swedish, French and Kurdish, and have been included in anthologies in English and Japanese.

As the language of her school and education was Turkish, for a long time she wrote almost exclusively in Turkish, the official language. Since 2015, she has been writing novels and stories in her mother tongue, Kurdish. In 1997, at the Orhan Kemal Literature Prize competition with her storybook “Kıraç Dağlar Kar Tuttu” (Kıraç Dağlar Kar Tuttu: Kıraç Dağlar Kar Tuttu), she was awarded first prize, but after a controversy, she was awarded second prize. After this incident, she decided not to take part in any further competitions.

Suzan Samancı has published books of literary analysis of her stories and novels.

While she is convinced that literature and art will heal and cleanse the polluted world, she also believes that without art and aesthetic awareness, human beings cannot achieve true freedom.