H.E.

I was born in 1984 in Istanbul, Turkey. My passion for the arts, languages and social sciences developed at an early age thanks to many afternoons spent in the company of my parents' artist friends. Both from working-class backgrounds,  my parents established Studio Art in their twenties. This was a modern art gallery within the premises of Narmanlı Han in Tünel from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. As a child, I spent a lot of my free time playing in the courtyard of this iconic building. Next door to my parents' gallery was a fantastic second-hand record shop. It was a very lively place frequented by artists, musicians and writers. It has recently been renovated and gentrified, a fate shared by many other neighbourhoods in the city. 

In 1997, I left Istanbul for Cambridge, UK to continue my education at the Turkish International Lycée, a comprehensive boarding school founded by Arın and Sinan Bayraktaroğlu in the premises of Sawston Hall, a Grade-I listed Tudor manor house dating from the 16th century. This magical setting brought me my love of literature and second-hand/antiquarian books. Later, I enrolled at the Impington Sixth Form College for my A-levels in History, Media Studies, Sociology and Turkish literature. I was drawn to the works of Albert Camus, Noam Chomsky, Simone De Beauvoir, Emile Durkheim, Ziya Gökalp, G.W.F Hegel, Yaşar Kemal, Karl Marx, Cemil Meriç, Friedrich Nietzsche, Peyami Safa, Arthur Schopenhauer, Jean Paul Sartre, Cemal Süreya and Virginia Woolf. Thus, I decided to study sociology at degree-level and applied to the University of Leicester.

I graduated from the Department of Sociology in 2006. My dissertation subject was whether society influences architecture with case-study based research inspired by Iraqi architect Dame Zaha Hadid's (1950-2016) proposal for the Cardiff Bay Opera House and the subsequent reaction it received from the public. It was exciting to conduct research on an area that brought together sociology and architecture, and on which only a handful of published sources existed. This gave me the opportunity dig deeper into both subjects and to build my argument that society does, in fact, influence architecture.  

A few months after my graduation I moved to Sheffield and took on the role of Human Resources Project Coordinator at B Braun Medical Ltd. This insightful professional experience brought me face-to-face with the fact that I had a burning desire to read and write more. And that a career in human resources, despite its rewards, would not give me the time or the energy to pursue my true passions. In 2008, I moved back to Istanbul with my portfolio of writing including poetry and short stories and began to explore the ways in which I could hone my skills as a writer and potentially, as a translator of Turkish to English and also earn a living.

I applied and was offered the position of Assistant Editor at "P Culture and Arts Magazine", a prestigious quarterly publication with separate editions in English and Turkish. This was where I learned the A-to-Z of magazine management, copywriting, editing and publishing processes. In 2009,"P" closed its doors after producing 60 editions over 13 years. 

From then on, I started working as a freelance editor, translator and journalist.  To-date my writing has been published in blogs, magazines and newspapers such as Aesthetica, Cumhuriyet, Sculpture, Canvas, Art Unlimited, Bir+Bir, Skylife and Skylife Business (inflight magazines of Turkish Airlines) and collaborated with various individuals, museums, publishing houses and private companies/institutions on the translation of fiction and non-fiction works and editorial projects. Some of the organisations I have worked with to-date are: Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Imago Mundi/Luciano Benetton Collection, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey Art Collection, Koç University Publications, Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Boyut Publishing, FCBARTGROUP, Ministry of Tourism and Culture of the Republic of Turkey, BKG and HSBC Turkey.  For further information please visit my portfolio.

In 2012, I  attended the prestigious, invitation-only Cunda International Workshop for Translators of Turkish Literature (TEÇCA)organised by the Harvard-Koç University Sevgi-Doğan Gönül Ottoman Research Institute . My translation of Mine Söğüt's short-story "Yılan" (Snake) was published in a collection of 70 literary works titled, Aeolian Visions/Versions: Modern Classics and New Writing from Turkey. 

In 2017, I had the honour of taking on the role of Literature Programme Manager at Asia House. I organised and delivered the 11th edition of the Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival - the only pan-Asian literature festival in the UK - which featured international literary minds such as Nadeem Aslam, Diana Darke, Meena Kandasamy, Christina Lamb OBE, Min Jin Lee, Xiaolu Guo, Elif Shafak, Burhan Sönmez, Sabrina Mahfouz, Prabda Yoon and Lijia Zhang. The festival was well-received by audiences, sponsors and collaborators. 

My translation of Murat Tuncel's Trakya Güneşi (The Thracian Sun) was published in 2021 by Texianer Verlag. It is available in kindle, paperback and hardback formats from Amazon and Waterstones. More recently, my translation of Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar's horror-comedy novel Gulyabani (1913) was published by Translation Attached under the title, Ghoulyabânî (2024) and is currently available in paperback through Amazon US and Canada. 

I currently live, write and translate in Italy. Please visit  Live the Questions Now for my current advertising and subscription free arts and culture blog.