Turkish author and translator
Tomris Uyar |
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| Born | Tomris Gedik
(1941-03-15)15 March 1941
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| Died | 4 July 2003(2003-07-04) (aged 62)
Istanbul, Turkey |
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| Resting place | Zincirlikuyu Cemetery, Istanbul |
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| Occupation(s) | Writer, translator |
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| Partner | Cemal Süreya (1964–1967) |
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Tomris Uyar (15 March 1941 – 4 July 2003) was a Turkish writer and translator. She was born in Istanbul, the daughter of two lawyers and granddaughter of Republican People's Party politician Süleyman Sırrı Gedik.[1] She was educated at the British Girls' Secondary School and at Arnavutköy American Girls' College, now called Robert College (1961). She graduated from the Journalism Institute affiliated to the Faculty of Economics of Istanbul University (1963).
The grave of the author, who died in 2003 due to esophageal cancer, is in Zincirlikuyu Mezarlığı.
Life and career
Uyar, who is one of the founders of Papirüs magazine together with Cemal Süreya and Ülkü Tamer, has published her essays, criticisms and book introductions in magazines such as Yeni Dergi, and Varlık.[2] She won the Sait Faik Story Award in 1979 with Yürekte Bukağı and in 1986 with Journey to Summer from her ten short story collections. Uyar's diaries, of which more than 60 translations have been published, have been published under the general title of "Gündökümü".
Uyar was a prolific writer of short stories, of which eleven volumes were published.[3] She translated into Turkish works by authors including Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, Lewis Carroll, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Gabriel García Márquez.
In 1975 she and her husband Turgut Uyar won a Turkish Language Society (Türk Dil Kurumu) prize for their translation of Lucretius' natural encyclopedia De rerum natura (Evrenin yapısı, Istanbul 1974). In 1980 and 1987 she was one of two Turkish authors who were awarded the Sait Faik Short Story Award. In 1987 she received the Theater Art Development Foundation's annual award in memory of actor Avni Dilligil, and in 2002 the Dünya award for the best narrative volume of the year. In the same year she was awarded the Sedat Simavi Literature Award.
Private life
The marriage of Tomris Uyar, who made his first marriage to the poet Ülkü Tamer in 1963, ended in 1964 after their daughter Ekin was drowned in milk. Tomris Uyar married the poet Turgut Uyar in 1969 and they had a son named Hayri Turgut Uyar. Hayri Turgut Uyar is now a lecturer at ITÜ(Istanbul Teknik Üniversitesi).
Edip Cansever is also in love with Tomris Uyar, who was in love with Cemal Süreya while he was married. In fact, at a raki table where he sat alone with Tomris, Cansever wrote on a napkin, "Tomris used to love rakı, and I used to love her..."[4]
Tribute
In 2020, Google celebrated her with a Google Doodle.[5]
