Inspired by MarioninTurkey´s project, I thought it would be interesting to have a thread in which we post short biographies of famous Turks. Please limit your arguments here!

Bülent Ersoy - (b. 1952) Turkish celebrity - actor and singer of Ottoman classical music. In 1981 underwent a sex reassignement surgery from male to female. After the surgery Bulent experienced discrimination largely blamed on the military government regime, which led her to attempt suicide. In 1988 Turkish Civil Code was revised and transgender people gained legal acceptance. Ersoy then returned to singing and acting and became very successful as well as gained popular acceptance.

Ersoy was involved in several more controversies: one after marrying a man over 20 years younger then her, some minor ones over her movie roles and in 2008 after publicly stating that "she would not send her sons to war if she were a mother", referring to the Iraq war. She was filed charges against for "turning Turks against compulsory military service", but she was pronounced not guilty by the court.

She is now a symbol of increased tolerance for LGTB figures in Turkish media.

Turan Dursun - (1934-1990 ) Author, Islamic scholar, imam and mufti in Turkey, who later became an atheist after studying the history of monotheistic religions. Open critic of religion and was frequently threatened by fundamntalists. Was eventually murdered outside his home, his library and writings were destroyed and an Islamic book not belonging to him was left on his bed.

After becoming mufti of Sivas, he initiated many projects for the development of the area and some progressive reforms (built a hospital, tree plantations, gave importance to education, paid respect to Ataturk.. etc).

His questioning of God started at the age of 11, but didn´t take a serious form until Dursun was supposed to meet with the Pope and wanting to be very well prepared for the meeting, he started studying Christianity and Judaism. His mental battle with God lasted a couple more years when he came to the conclusion that there is no God. Dursun became "angry" that Mohammed took away valuable years of childhood and youth. He then went on to work for the Turkish Radio and wrote many books.

Tansu Çiller - (b. 1946 in Istanbul) Turkish economist and politician. First and only Turkish female prime minister. She studied economics, finished postdoctoral studies at Yale University and taught economics as a professor at several universities. In 1990 she joined the conservative True Path Party and served as the Minister of State in charge of economics in the coalition government. In 1993 she became the party leader and later the Prime Minister (from 1993-1996). Served as Foreign Affairs Minister between 1996-97. One of her achievents was modernizing Turkish army and getting PKK listed as a terrorist organization by the USA and EU.

She was later investigated on corruption charges, but cleared mainly due to  technicalities and at the end of 1998 the corruption files were covered up.

She is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders.

Aziz Nesin - (1915-1995) Turkish writer, humorist, author of many books, officer. Was jailed several times for political views. Satirized beurocracy, exposed economic inequities, and oppression of the common man. In 1972 he founded the Nesin Foundation, which would take each year four poor children that the foundation provided everything for until their completion of high school or vocational school.

Nesin led a dozen of intellectuals to protest military government after the 1980 military coup. 

He championed free speech, including criticism of Islam. In 1990s started translating Salman Rushdie´s Satanic Verses, which made him a target for radical islamists, who in 1993 in Sivas set a hotel on fire where Nesin and others were staying during an Alevi cultural festival. 37 people were killed.

He devoted his last years to fighting religious fundamentalism.

Ferit Orhan Pamuk - (b. 1952 in Istanbul) Turkish novelist, the first Turkish Nobel Prize winner, best selling Turkish author. Teaches writing and literature in Columbia University. His latest novel is Masumiyet Müzesi (The Museum of Innocence). In 2005 in an interview he said: "Thirty thousand Kurds have been killed here, and a million Armenians. And almost nobody dares to mention that. So I do." Because of these remarks he was subjected to hate compaign and forced to flee Turkey. When he returned, he faced charges under Article 301, which were later dropped under international pressure.  Because of these remarks he was subjected to hate compaign and forced to flee Turkey and when returned, faced charges under Article 301, which were later dropped under international pressure.

Hrant Dink - (1954-2007) Turkish-Armenian editor, journalist, columnist. He was an advocate for Turkish Armenian reconciliation and human and minority rights advocate in Turkey. He was critical of the Turkish denial of Armenian genocide and was prosecuted three times for "denigrating Turkishness". Received numerous death threats from Turkish nationalists until being murdered by a Turkish nationalist Ogun Samast.

"While Samast has since been taken into custody, photographs of the assassin flanked by smiling Turkish police and gendarmerie, posing with the killer side by side in front of the Turkish flag, have since surfaced. The photos created a scandal in Turkey, prompting a spate of investigations and the removal from office of those involved.

At his funeral, two hundred thousand mourners marched in protest of the assassination, chanting "We are all Armenians" and "We are all Hrant Dink". Criticism of Article 301 became increasingly vocal after his death, leading to parliamentary proposals for repeal."

Wiki

kocur???what is the reason of repeating marionin thread?

Pamuk is a great writer, love his books

 Love his appreciation of both eastern and western culture and how they inter connected. He has a really  excellent style and very sensitive disposition. This man is a writing genius.

Very popular here in Croatia

MarioninTurkey´s thread is for suggestions of who she should include in her book, here I want people to post short biographies - one biography per post!

Yusuf Atılgan (27 June 1921, Manisa - 9 October 1989, İstanbul) was a Turkish novelist and dramatist, who is best known for his novels Aylak Adam (The Loiterer) and Anayurt Oteli (Motherland Hotel).

Atılgan finished middle school in Manisa, then high school in Balıkesir. He graduated in Turkish language and literature from İstanbul University. He finished his thesis titled Tokatlı Kani: Sanat, şahsiyet ve psikoloji under the eye of Nihat Tarlan. Atılgan then began teaching literature at Maltepe Askeri Lisesi in Akşehir. In 1946, he settled down at a village named Hacırahmanlı near Manisa where he took up writing. His novel Aylak Adam was published in 1959 which dealt with psychological themes such as loneliness and obsession. This was followed in 1973 by Anayurt Oteli. In 1976, he began working in İstanbul as an editor and translator. With his wife Serpil he had a son in 1979 named Mehmet.

Atılgan died of a heart attack in 1989 while in the middle of writing a novel titled Canistan (from wikipedia)

Oğuz Atay (1934-1977) was a pioneer of the modern novel in Turkey. His first novel, Tutunamayanlar (The Good for Nothing), appeared 1971-72. Never reprinted in his lifetime and controversial among critics, it has become a best-seller since a new edition came out in 1984. It has been described as “probably the most eminent novel of twentieth-century Turkish literature”: this reference is due to a UNESCO survey, which goes on: “it poses an earnest challenge to even the most skilled translator with its kaleidoscope of colloquialisms and sheer size.” No translation has yet been published in any language. However, Hanneke van der Heijden has announced a Dutch translation by herself and Margreet Dorleijn, scheduled to appear in 2010

He was born October 12, 1934 in İnebolu, a small town (population less than 10,00 in the centre of the Black Sea coast, 590 km from İstanbul. His father was a judge and his mother a schoolteacher, thus both representative of the modernization of Turkey brought about by Atatürk. Although he lived most of his life in big cities this provincial background was important to his work. He was at high school in Ankara until 1951, and after military service enrolled at Istanbul Technical University, where he graduated as a civil engineer in 1957. With a friend he started an enterprise as a building contractor. This failed, leaving him (as such experiences have for other novelists) valuable material for his writing. In 1960 he joined the staff of the İstanbul Academy of Engineering and Architecture, where he worked until his final illness; he was promoted to associate professorship in 1970, for which he presented as his qualification a textbook on surveying, Topoğrafya. His first creative work, Tutunamayanlar, was awarded the prize of Turkish Radio Television Institution, TRT in 1970, before it had been published. He went on to write another novel and a volume of short stories among other works.

He died in İstanbul, December 13, 1977, of a brain tumour. He spent much of his last year in London, where he had gone for treatment. He married twice, and left a daughter by his first marriage.

(From wikipedia)

 Great! Let´s see how long it takes for this thread to degenerate into a political argument too ...

Fatma Aliye Topuz - (1862-1936) Turkish novelist, columnist, essayist, humanitarian, women´s rights activist. Fatma Aliye is credited as the first female novelist in Turkish literature and Islamic geography. Her pen name was "Bir Hanım" (A Lady) and "Mutercime -i Meram" (Translator of Meram). Fatma was born to a leading Ottoman civil servant and historian Ahmet Cevdet Pasha, who was a wali (province governor) in Egypt and Greece. Because of her father´s position, Fatma spent some time in Aleppo, Janina and Damascus. She was educated at home, since it was not common to send girls to school (even though there was no legal restriction to send girls to school). Due to her intellectual curiosity, she learned Arabic and French.

At the age of 17, her father arranged her marriage to a captain-major Mehmet Faik Bey. She gave birth to 4 daughters, the first one when she was only 18 years old. During the first years of her marriage, her husband, who was intellectually less endowed, did not allow her to read novels in foreign languages.

With her husband´s permission, 10 years after her marriage she debuted with the translation of the novel Volonte from French to Turkish, under the pen name "Bir Hanım". A renowned writer Ahmet Mithat Efendi was so impressed with her that he declared her his honorary daughter. Five years later, she co-authored with him a novel Hayal ve Hakikat (Dream and Truth); the work was signes as "Bir Kadın ve Ahmet Mithat".

Two years earlier, Fatma published her first novel Muhazarat (Useful Information), under her real name, in which she tried to disprove the belief that a woman cannot forget her first love. It was the first novel in the entire Ottoman Empire written by a woman.

In 1899, she published Udi (The Lute Player) in which she portrayed the life story of Bedia, a female oud player whom Fatma met in Aleppo, and her unhappy marriage.

In her other novels, she talked about marriage, the importance of courtship as opposed to arranged marriage, and depicted independent and self reliant heroines who work and earn their own money. Her prominence grew when Ahmet Mithat published a book The Birth of An Ottoman Female Writer.

Fatma Aliye was engaged in charity and was a columnist for women´s magazine Ladies´ Own Gazette.

She is depicted on the reverse of the 50 Turkish lira banknote issued in 2009.

wowwwwgreat effort and important informations

thanks catwoman.