Born in 1940, Oya Baydar graduated from Notre Dame de Sion High School for girls. The youth novel which she wrote in her senior year was published in the Hurriyet newspaper, introducing her as “the tFrançoise Sagan of Turkey”. Her first book, “Allah Çocukları Unuttu” (The God Forgot his Children), was published in 1961 and the second one titled “Savaş Çağı Umut Çağı” (The Age of War, the Age of Hope) was published in 1964.

She studied sociology in Istanbul University between 1960 and 1964, and after graduation she started working as an assistant lecturer in the same department. At the same time she began writing her doctorate thesis, titled “The Emergence of the Working Class in Turkey”. She quit writing literature in the 1960s, during which the socialist ideology and organizing began in Turkey, and focused on researching on the socio-political structures. She got actively involved in the socialist movement.

She was arrested and dismissed from her work at the university for being a member of the Turkish Teachers’ Trade Union and the Turkish Labour Party. After her release she worked as a columnist in the Yeni Ortam (New Environment) and the Politika (Politics) newspapers until 1980. She had to flee Turkey after the coup d’etat on September 12, 1980, and lived in exile in Frankfurt, Germany until 1992. During her years of exile, she lived in various European cities and Moscow. She witnessed the collapse of the socialist system and the Berlin wall, for which she commented, “This wall fell on of us all”.
In the early ‘90s, she began writing short stories to overcome the phycological depression she was going through due to the collapse of the socialist practice. She frequently expressed her mood with a quote from the famous story writer, Sait Faik: “If I hadn’t written, I”d go insane”.

Her book, Elveda Alyoşa (Farewell Alyosha), which compiled her stories of exile and the collapse of the socialist system, is published in 1991 in Turkey and was awarded with the Sait Faik Story Prize. She won the Yunus Nadi Novel Prize in 1993 with her Kedi Mektupları (Letters of the Cat) novel. Her next novel Hiçbiryer’e Dönüş (Return to Nowhereland) was published in 1998. Sıcak Külleri Kaldı, published in 2000, won the Orhan Kemal Novel Prize. She received her next award, the Cevdet Kudret Literature Prize, with her Erguvan Kapısı, which was publihed in 2004. Her latest novel, Kayıp Söz, was published in 2008 and the same year it was translated to German.

Oya Baydar currently lives in Turkey; spending her time both in Istanbul and the Marmara Island.

Oya Baydar’s Lost Word Published In German By Ullstein-Claassen

Oya Baydar’s latest novel LOST WORD is published in German by Ullstein-Claassen

French rights sold to Phebus

Oya Baydar is one of the most widely read contemporary Turkish writers who has received the most attention and who also has prompted the most debate. While endowing intense and turbulent political environment of our country with literature, she also brings covered up issues out into the open and through her novels places them on the agenda. She became a member of Turkish Labour Party. She worked in the academic committee of the party. When her doctorate thesis titled “The Rise of Turkish Working Class” was accepted by the jury, but refused by the committee of professors, because of the students’ protest activities of 1968, she left her academic career at the Istanbul University. In 1971, after 12th March military coup, she was arrested. She was one of the founders of Turkish Socialist Labour Party in 1964. Then she joined Turkish Communist Party. Following the 12th September 1980 military coup, she had to go abroad because of the jail sentence of 27 years wanted for her in the law suits commenced against her writings. She lived as a refugee first in Germany, then in different countries and cities of Europe for 12 years. In 1981-1982 she lived in the Soviet Union, in Moscow. She witnessed the collapse of the socialist system and the fall of Berlin Wall in Frankfurt where she lived in exile in 1989. In 1992, she returned to Turkey availing herself of the partial imnesty.
Baydar, who is the founder and spokeswoman of Turkey Peace Attempt which was founded in 2001, continues to write especially focusing on novels.