Erdal Merdan

Erdal Merdan — Biography

Germany was where Erdal Merdan, a Turkish-born playwright, theatre director and actor, lived and worked. Besides stage texts he wrote radio plays, and on screen he is best known for his part in Umuda Yolculuk (Journey of Hope), the film that won the Academy Award. He died on 24 March 2010 in Brannenburg, Bavaria.

Born in Kayseri, he went to Germany in 1969 and worked on the German stage as well as in radio, film and television. His early writing leaned towards radio drama: Das Opferfest appeared in 1982 and Freunde in 1983. Theatre pieces for children and young audiences followed; he wrote Aladdin und die müde Lampe and Leyla, Leyla together with Gretel Merdan in 1986, and Ayschegül und der schwarze Esel was staged in 1991.

One of his first notable screen parts was Arkan in the 1975 episode Tod im U-Bahnschacht of the German crime series Tatort; he returned to the series in 1991 for Die chinesische Methode. Roles in the documentary Alamanya, Alamanya (1979), Gespenster (1994), Der Pirat (1998) and several short films followed. In 1991 he received a grant from the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, and in 1997 he shared the AZ-Stern and tz-Rose awards as a member of a theatre ensemble.