Emine Sevgi Özdamar

Emine Sevgi Özdamar — Biography

Emine Sevgi Özdamar was born on 10 August 1946 in Malatya. A Turkish-born writer, stage actress and director, she began her artistic life in theatre and moved to Germany in 1976, working as a freelance writer from 1986 onward.

She performed on stages in cities including Berlin, Paris, Lyon, Avignon, Munich, Frankfurt and Bochum, and trained as a dramaturge and assistant director under Benno Besson, a disciple of Bertolt Brecht. Regarded as one of the leading figures of contemporary German literature, she is best known for novels such as Life is a Caravanserai, Mother Tongue and The Bridge of the Golden Horn. Her honours include the 1991 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, the Georg Büchner Prize and the Bertolt Brecht Literature Prize, as well as the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Her work has been the subject of extensive academic study in comparative literature and translation studies.