Çiler İlhan

Born in 1972, Çiler İlhan studied International Relations and Political Science at Bosphorus University, and Hotel Management at the Glion Hotel School in Switzerland. She has worked as hotelier, writer (Boğaziçi, TimeOut İstanbul, Trendsetter), and editor (Chat, Travel + Leisure). In 1993, İlhan was the recipient of the Notable Short Story Award at the Yaşar Nabi Youth Awards; her stories were subsequently published in numerous literary magazines. Her essays, book reviews, travel writings and translations have appeared in magazines/newspaper supplements such as Kitap-lık, Radikal Kitap, Radikal Cumartesi and TimeOut İstanbul.

Çiler İlhan’s Vulgata appeared in the story anthology entitled 1002inci Gece Masalları (Tales of the One Thousand and Second Night, Metis, 2005). Her first book Rüya Tacirleri Odası (Chamber of Dream Merchants, Artemis, April 2006) is a collection of short stories that allude to one another. Her short story entitled Zobar ve Başa (Zobar and Başa) was published in TimeOut Istanbul Stories (May 2007), and Bozkırkurdu’nun Mozart’ıyla Buluşması (Steppenwolf Meets His Mozart) appeared in Bozcaada Stories (Yitik Ülke, September 2009). Several of her short stories have been published in ITEF Istanbul Tanpınar Literature Festival Books (Kalem Ajans). Her second book entitled Sürgün (Exile, Everest, March 2010) contains interconnected stories whose themes range from the invasion of Iraq to women from Batman, and the fate of laboratory; it won the 2011 European Union Prize for Literature (euprizeliterature.eu). Exile has so far been published in sixteen countries, including France and the United Kingdom.

Several of İlhan’s ITEF Festival Books entries later were selected by editor Heather Reyes for City-Pick Istanbul – Perfect Gems of City Writing (Oxygen, 2013). This anthology of some of the greatest contemporary writing about Istanbul offers a glimpse into this fascinating city and includes entries from Orhan Pamuk, Yashar Kemal, Oya Baydar and İnci Aral, to name but a few. İlhan’s Pippa (from Exile) was included in the French collection Écrivains de Turquie sur les rives du Soleil (Galaade, 2013) along with sixteen Turkish authors including Adalet Ağaoğlu, Leyla Erbil, Enis Batur and Mario Levi. More recently, one of her stories was selected by editor Yekta Kopan for İpekli Mendil (Silk Handkerchief, Can, December 2014), an anthology of Turkish writing from the 1840s through to today, and another in Canımı Yakma (Don’t Hurt Me, Kırmızı Kedi, March 2016, a joint Turkish-Norwegian PEN project), twenty-five stories on the violation of women’s rights in Turkey.

Çiler İlhan is member of Turkish PEN. Based in Istanbul, she is currently the editor-in-chief of a monthly travel and life-style magazine, and working on her third book, scheduled for publication in 2017.

Literature in Translation
Triskel Christchurch Fri 20 Apr 20.30 – 21.30 (€6/€5)