Zafer Şenocak, “First Light” (A Bilingual Reading)

November 22, Friday @3-5pm

Join us for a reading in Turkish and English by Zafer Şenocak and Kristin Dickinson, followed by a conversation about Kristin’s translation of Zafer Şenocak’s most recent bilingual poetry book First Light.

Zafer Şenocak is a prolific Turkish-German poet, novelist, essayist and public intellectual. Born in Turkey, Şenocak moved to Germany as a child, and has lived in Berlin as a freelance writer since 1989. He has written widely on issues of diversity in Germany, migration and exile, the Turkish diaspora, and the small distances and great fears of a globalizing Europe. Historical questions of mixed and broken identities are key to his novels, which utilize nonlinear modes of storytelling to emphasize the fragmented nature of memory. Şenocak has been a writer in residence at UC Berkeley, M.I.T., Oberlin College, Dartmouth College, and the University of Arizona. He is currently in residence at the University of Michigan during the Fall 2024 term. Most recently, his Turkish-language poetry has been translated into English by UM Professor Kristin Dickinson, which appeared in a bilingual edition with Zephyr Press in 2024 under the title, First Light.

Co-sponsored by the Center for German & European Studies, the Department of German, Nordic & Slavic+, the Kemal Karpat Center for Turkish Studies, and the Center for European Studies.

More information forthcoming.