PICT BOOKS AUTHORS
GÜN BENDERLİ was twenty-one when she left Turkey in 1951 to escape a political mass arrest. She spent the rest of her life abroad, in cities such as Paris, Leipzig, and mostly Budapest, where she worked as a broadcaster for Hungarian Radio and a member of the banned Communist Party of Turkey (TKP). Gün has translated over a dozen Hungarian writers into Turkish and penned three volumes of memoirs, recounting her life and political work alongside names such as Nazım Hikmet and Sabiha Sertel. In 2024, she was awarded the Balassi Grand Prize for Literary Translation by the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. |
EVRIM EMIR-SAYERS is a scholar of philosophy who researches, teaches, writes, edits, and translates out of Paris, France. Her work mostly focuses on existentialism, phenomenology, and the philosophy of art, while her translations range from Plato to an array of Turkish writers and poets including Ahmed Arif, Aşık Veysel, Gün Benderli, Nazım Hikmet, and Sabiha Sertel. Evrim’s 2021 article, “The Real Academy in Exile” (co-authored with David Selim Sayers), sparked an international debate in the field of Turkish Studies. Evrim is a co-founder and core faculty member of the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking (PICT). |
DAVID SELIM SAYERS is a scholar of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire. His publications include the books The Wiles of Women as a Literary Genre and Tifli Hikayeleri, the translated volumes The Struggle for Modern Turkey and Muhacirname: Poetry’s Voice for the Karamanlidhes Refugees, and scholarly introductions to the work of Sabahattin Ali and Sabiha Sertel. David’s 2021 article, “The Real Academy in Exile” (co-authored with Evrim Emir-Sayers), sparked an international debate in the field of Turkish Studies. David is a co-founder and core faculty member of the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking (PICT). |