Tomris Uyar

Rana Tomris Gedik was born in Istanbul, the daughter of two lawyers and granddaughter of Republican People's Party politician Süleyman Sırrı Gedik.[1] She graduated in journalism in 1963 and lived in Istanbul, working as a freelance writer and translator. From the mid-1960s she published stories, diaries, translations and literary criticism.

Uyar was a prolific writer of short stories, of which eleven volumes were published.[2] She translated into Turkish works in English, French and German by authors including Virginia Woolf, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Gabriel García Márquez. Uyar was amongst a group of poets that brought existentialism and surrealism to Turkish literature. She was an active opponent of the Vietnam War.

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 yapisi, 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.

Tomris Uyar died of esophagus cancer in 2003.

In 2020, Google celebrated her with a Google Doodle.[3]

Short stories and other writings

• İpek ve bakır (Silk and Copper) - 1971
• Ödeşmeler (Payments) - 1973
• Dizboyu papatyalar (Kneehigh Daisies) - 1975
• Yürekte bukağı: öyküler (Heartbreak: Stories) - 1979, winner of the 1980 Sait Faik prize
• Sesler, yüzler, sokaklar (Voices, Faces, Streets) - 1981
• Yaz düşleri / Düş kışları: öyküler (Summer Dreams / Dream Winters: Short Stories) - 1981
• Gece gezen kızlar: öyküler (Girls Visiting the Night: Short Stories) - 1983
• Rus ruleti (Russian Roulette) - 1985
• Yaza yolculuk: öyküler (Journey to Summer: Short Stories) - 1985, winner of the 1986 Sait Faik prize
• Sekizinci günah (The Eighth Sin) - 1990
• İki yaka iki uç: öyküler (Two Sides and Two Ends: Short Stories) - 1992
• Otuzların kadını (Woman in her Thirties) - 1992
• Tanışma günleri/anları: (1989-1995) (Meeting days / moments) - 1995
• Aramızdaki şey (What is between us) - 1998
• Şiirde dün yok mu: Turgut Uyar üzerine yazılar (Yesterday in the poem: articles on Turgut Uyar) - 1999
• Yüzleşmeler : bir uyumsuzun notları, 1995-1999 (Confrontations: Notes of a Mismatch) - 2000

Diaries

• Gündökümü 75: günlük (Sunrise 75: Diary) - 1976
• Gündökümü (1975-1980): bir uyumsuzun notları (Sunrise - Notes of a Nonconformist) - 1990
• Günlerin tortusu (1980-1984): bir uyumsuzun notları (Sediment of the Days - Notes of a Nonconformist) - 1985
• Yazılı günler (1985-1988) (Written days) - 1989

• Tayfun Demir: Türkische Literatur in deutscher Sprache. Eine Bibliographie mit Erläuterungen. Sekretariat für gemeinsame Kulturarbeit in NRW, Duisburg 1995, ISBN 3-89279-510-X, S. 80. (German)
• Luis Mitler: Contemporary Turkish writers. A critical bio-bibliography of leading writers in the Turkish Republican period up to 1980. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (Indiana) 1988, ISBN 0-933070-14-4, S. 259.