Author • Turkish literature

Mine Soysal

Mine Soysal was born in 1959 in İstanbul. Soysal graduated from Istanbul University, Department of Ancient Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures in 1981. Until 1994 she worked as an archeologist and researcher in Istanbul Archeology Museums and implemented exhibition projects. She founded Günışığı Kitaplığı in 1996, a publishing house specialised in Turkish and world literature for children and young adults. In 2005, she prepared the story book Ala, the Child on the Road (Ala Çocuk Yollarda) for children. She currently holds interactive debate programs about the cultural history of Istanbul and Anatolia for elementary and high school students. She has carried numerous interactive meetings with thousands of students who discussed the tendencies and problems of reading in the program titled Conversations on Reading and in 2006 she turned them into stories in her famous book Oh No, Books! (Eyvah Kitap!). She addressed the important problems of youth in her short story book Alone in the Room (Odada Yalnız, 2009) and wrote a young adult novel entitled The Loves Of Eylül (Eylül’de Aşklar, 2001). Soysal’s other novel, Far Away (Uzakta, 2014) narrates the efforts of two young lives to find themselves, published by ON8. She wrote the narrative The Story of Istanbul (İstanbul Masalı, 2003) for readers of all ages and it is adapted to documentary “A Tale of Istanbul by Mine Soysal” in 2015. In her last novel, In a Tight Spot (Daralan, 2017), Soysal brings together two high school boys living in the same neighborhood with totally different concerns and expectations. Mine Soysal is currently the general manager of Günışığı Kitaplığı and lives in İstanbul.