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Burhan Sönmez, now President of PEN International, was born in Turkey in 1965. His mother tongue is Kurdish, which was stigmatised in Turkey during his youth. While practising law and campaigning for human rights in Istanbul, he was seriously injured during a murder attempt by the Turkish police in 1996 and left the country, receiving treatment in Britain and remaining in exile there for several years. He now splits his time between England and Istanbul. Sönmez a Senior Member of Hughes Hall College and Trinity College, University of Cambridge. Lovers of Franz K. is his sixth novel. Sami Hêzil was born in Van in Turkish Kurdistan in 1975 and graduated from the Department of English Language and Literature at Van Yüzüncü Yil University in 1999. His previous translation work consists of English to Kurdish translation, including The Raven and Twenty Other Poems by Edgar Allen Poe and The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde. |