Abbas Sayar Author

Abbas Sayar [1923-1999] was born in Yozgat. After graduating from high school, he was unable to attend university due to poverty. Following a brief period in civil service, he served as a reserve officer. He later studied Turkology for four terms before being forced to return to Yozgat in 1947. There, he established a printing house and continued publishing the biweekly newspaper Bozlak, which he had founded in Istanbul. Over the next forty-five years, he wrote thousands of editorials for the paper. Sayar also ventured into politics, though this proved short-lived, as he was unable to accommodate the entrenched interests of the establishment. His first novel, Wild Horse, was published in 1970—fifteen years after it was written—and won the TRT (Turkish Radio and Television Corporation) Novel Award. Alongside his long career in journalism, he wrote eight novels and six collections of poetry. He occupies a modest yet distinctive place in Turkish rural literature.

Can Koçak is an Assistant Professor in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex. Before finding his way into academia, he worked as a lawyer, copywriter, and copy editor. He is the Turkish translator of Mladen Dolar’s Rumors (Polity Press, 2025). Born in Ankara, Türkiye in 1990, he now lives in London.