Tomris Uyar

Tomris Uyar was born in Istanbul on 15 March 1941. After Arnavutköy American College for Girls, she graduated from Istanbul University’s Journalism Institute. She entered literature through translation, bringing more than sixty books from English into Turkish and contributing to Papirüs magazine. Her own stories explored language through everyday encounters, things left unsaid and changes in city life.

İpek ve Bakır, published in 1971, was her first story collection. Books including Dizboyu Papatyalar, Yürekte Bukağı and Gecegezen Kızlar developed her experiments with storytelling. Shifting viewpoints, encounters with fairy tales and stories nested within stories were part of that search. She received the Sait Faik Story Award for Yürekte Bukağı in 1980 and Yaza Yolculuk in 1987, followed by the 2002 Sedat Simavi Literature Award for Güzel Yazı Defteri.

Uyar died on 4 July 2003. In Gündökümü, readers find the small details of a day alongside the writer’s working life. Her Elele articles reached readers beyond literary magazines. She described learning more about society from their letters. Bringing the same care for language to these articles as to her stories, she formed a connection with readers through everyday life.