Ayfer Tunç

Author of My Mother’s Sleepwalking Nights

She was born in 1964 in Adapazarı. Her mother was from the Black Sea region, her father an immigrant from Bulgaria, and her grandmother was Abkhazian. In other words, her childhood was scented with cabbage soup on one side and Circassian chicken sprinkled with walnuts on the other. Her family was, in a sense, like a miniature Ottoman Empire: colorful, contentious, and full of voices. She studied at Istanbul University’s Faculty of Political Science, worked as a journalist, and spent years as an editorial director at one of Turkey’s leading publishing houses. Her life has always revolved around words. She sees writing not merely as a way to create fiction, but as a means of exposing society, time, pain, and hypocrisy. “Life always defeats art” she says — yet she continues to stubbornly write on pages that strive to overcome life. In winter, she lives in her home in Maçka overlooking the Bosphorus, and in summer, on one of the islands gazing back at Istanbul. She continues to explore cities by walking, to listen carefully to people, and to make the invisible sides of life visible through words. She loves drinking tea.