Hakan Günday

Hakan Günday — Biography

Hakan Günday is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter and writer born on 29 May 1976 on the Greek island of Rhodes. He spent part of his childhood in Brussels before settling in Ankara, where he finished Tevfik Fikret High School; he later studied at Hacettepe University, the Université libre de Bruxelles and Ankara University's Faculty of Political Science.

Günday made his literary debut in 2000 with the novel "Kinyas ve Kayra" and has since produced novels, television and film screenplays, and plays. Through the anti-heroes at the center of his fiction he interrogates social morality along with the institutions of marriage and family, frequently addressing themes such as sexuality, violence, drugs and deviant relationships; he is regarded as one of the leading figures of Turkey's underground literary scene. His novel "Ziyan" (Loss) received the Prix France-Turquie, while "Daha" (More) won France's Prix Médicis étranger and was later adapted into a film directed by Onur Saylak.

Based in Istanbul, Günday has also written for television, including the series "Şahsiyet" (Persona).