Novelist Aslı Erdoğan Detained

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Özgür Gündem daily’s columnist and Publishing Consultancy Board member, novelist Aslı Erdoğan’s house was raided by police last evening (August 16).

Erdoğan whose house was searched was taken into custody. It is yet to be known (12 p.m.) at which police station Erdoğan is being kept.

About Aslı Erdoğan

Born in Istanbul, she graduated from Robert College in 1983 and the Computer Engineering Department of Boğaziçi University in 1988. She worked at CERN as a particle physicist from 1991 to 1993 and received an MSc in physics from Boğaziçi University as a result of her research there. She began research for a PhD in physics in Rio de Janeiro before returning to Turkey to become a full-time writer in 1996. Aslı Erdoğan was detained on 17 August 2016 during the police raid on pro-Kurdish daily, Özgür Gündem for being a member of the Advisory Board of the newspaper. 

Her first story The Final Farewell Note won third prize in the 1990 Yunus Nadi Writing Competition. Her first novel, Kabuk Adam (Crust Man), was published in 1994 and was followed by, Mucizevi Mandarin (Miraculous Mandarin) a series of interconnected short stories in 1996. Her short story Wooden Birds received first prize from Deutsche Welle radio in a 1997 competition and her second novel, Kirmizi Pelerinli Kent (The City in Crimson Cloak), received numerous accolades abroad and has been published in English Language translation.

She was the Turkish representative of International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee from 1998 to 2000. She also wrote a column entitled The Others for the Turkish newspaper Radikal, the articles from which were later collected and published as the book Bir Yolculuk Ne Zaman Biter (When a Journey Ends) and featured in the 2004 edition of M.E.E.T.'s journal.

She is widely traveled and has an interest in anthropology and Native American culture.

From December 2011 to May 2012, at the invitation of the Literaturhaus Zurich and the PWG Foundation, Erdoğan was Zurich's "writer in residence". (EA/TK)