Bilkent to Hold Bilge Karasu Symposium

The Bilkent Center for Turkish Literature is organizing a one-and-a-half day symposium devoted to Bilge Karasu (1930-1995), one of modern Turkey's prominent novelists. Karasu, a polyglot proficient in eight languages, was the recipient of some of Turkey's leading awards for his novels and translations. He also received the prestigious American Pegasus Literary Writing Award in 1991. The late Bilge Karasu was a multi-talented creative artist: writer, teacher of philosophy, art critic, and accomplished pianist. For many years, he taught philosophy at Hacettepe University.

The symposium will take place on Monday, December 13 from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and on Tuesday, December 14, 9 a.m. to noon. The keynote speaker will be Prof. Aron Aji, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at St. Ambrose University, Iowa, U.S.A., who has translated into English numerous novels by Murathan Mungan, Elif Şafak, and Latife Tekin in addition to three novels by Karasu. For his translation of Karasu's The Garden of Departed Cats, Prof. Aji was awarded America's 2004 National Translation Award.

Other principal speakers will be Doğan Hızlan, Tansu Açık, Burcu Çetin, Neslihan Demirkol, Servet Erdem, Hasan Erkek, Levent Kavas, Laurent Mignon, Mehmet Nemutlu, Doğan Yaşat, Berna Yıldırım, Semih Tezcan, Talat Halman, and Alain Mascarou, translator of several Karasu novels into French. One session of the symposium will be devoted to reminiscences by Karasu's friends and associates in such diverse fields as literature, philosophy, art, and music including Pulat Tacar, Yıldırım Arıcı, Mustafa Arslantunalı, Sıtkı Erinç, Sedat Örsel, Ali Poyrazoğlu, Fred Stark, and Müge Gürsoy Sökmen.

The symposium, held on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Karasu's birth and 15th anniversary of his death, will take place at FEASS Building C-Block Auditorium. Admission is open and free.