Within the scope of the „Turkish writers meet Their Serbian readers“ programme, Institute Yunus Emre Turkish Cultural Centre in Belgrade will host Solmaz Kamuran, author of the novel Hungarian (Macar) on 24th March 2016, at 2 pm.
On this occasion, the author will present her work to the Serbian readership. Hungarian is a story of Ibrahim Muteferrika, diplomat, scientist, mystique, translator and founder of the first printing press in the Ottoman Empire. Muteferrika came to the Ottoman Empire as a companion of Francic Rákóczi, who had to flee from his country after the unsuccessful rebellion against Austria. There, fascinated by Sufism, he changed his name and religion and soon became very influential person in the Ottoman court. The novel, in which past and present have been intertwined, illuminates cultural and intimate connections between the two great empires, namely, the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian.
Solmaz Kamuran (Istanbul, 1954) is a Turkish writer, translator, columnist and dentist. She mainly writes historical novels. Her biggest success so far was with her third novel, Kiraze which has been sold more than 110.000 copies in Turkey and translated into ten languages, among them Serbian. Kiraze is the saga of a Sephardic Jewish family that has forced to migrate out from Spain to Turkey. This novel was the main reason Kamuran was invited by University of Sorbonne for a conference on the Sephardic Jews and their literature.Her other novels are Minta(Minta), the Bank (Banka), Boreas – Wind of Dardanelle (Boreas – Çanakkale Rüzgarı), A Perch Skeleton(Bir Levrek İskeleti).
Institute Yunus Emre Turkish Cultural Centre is located in Belgrade, Dobracina 38.