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Efe Murad

Efe Murad is a Turkish poet, translator, and historian.

Biography

Born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, Efe Murad studied philosophy at Princeton University and completed his PhD in Ottoman History and Arabic Philosophy at Harvard University. Together with Cem Kurtuluş, he wrote the Matter-Poetry Manifesto in 2004. During his senior year at Robert College, he received the gold medal in the International Philosophy Olympiad, which was organized in Cosenza, Italy in 2006.

He is the author of six books of poetry and the translator of ten more, including the first complete translation of Ezra Pound’s Cantos into Turkish; volumes by the American poets Susan Howe, Lyn Hejinian, and C. K. Williams, the German author Thomas Bernhard, as well as the Iranian poets Mahmoud Mosharraf Azad Tehrani and Fereydoon Moshiri. Together with the American poet and translator Sidney Wade, he co-translated a collection of poems by the Turkish modernist Melih Cevdet Anday under the title Silent Stones (Talisman Press, 2017), which was awarded "the Meral Divitçi Prize for Turkish Poetry in Translation." His poems, writings and translations in English have appeared in a wide range of journals including The American Reader, Five Points, Denver Quarterly, Guernica, Critical Flame, Turkish Poetry Today, Poet Lore, Asymptote, Jacket2, and Two Lines, and exhibitions including the 13th Istanbul Biennial. In 2021, he published a volume of memoiristic essays, The Pleasures of Empty Lots, which concerns the culture of the flaneur and the rise of authoritarianism in his hometown Istanbul. His bilingual book of poetry, Breaking of Symmetry/Simetrinin Kırılması, a collaboration with the Harvard University quantum physics researcher Dr. Sina Zeytinoğlu and poet-artist Sevinç Çalhanoğlu came out in a special edition of 400, funded by the European Union Grant Scheme for Common Cultural Heritage, as well as Turkey’s Aşina Project. According to the description included in the book, Murad recorded various conversations with Dr. Zeytinoğlu about his research on symmetry breakings and phase transitions. Having transcribed these recorded conversations, Murad chiseled Dr. Zeytinoğlu’s words into poetry by mixing them with corresponding contexts in Islamic philosophy and Sufism.

A scholar of Ottoman history and Islamic philosophy, he taught history, religion, and writing at Wellesley College for four years, and he is currently serving as a faculty fellow in Islamic history at New York University’s Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. His ongoing practice melds paleography, found footage, soundscapes, and mystical experience in poetry. An Organ of Quality, a cycle of poems will be published by Bored Wolves Press in 2024.

Books in English

  • Verifying the Truth on Their Own Terms Ottoman Philosophical Culture and the Court Debate Between Zeyrek (d. 903/1497-98 [?]) and Ḫocazāde (d. 893/1488) (Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2023) .
  • The Pleasures of Empty Lots (Bored Wolves Press, 2021) .
  • Silent Stones, co-trans. w/ Sidney Wade (Talisman House, 2017) .
  • Breaking of Symmetry/Simetrinin Kırılması, in collaboration w/ Sina Zeytinoğlu, Sevinç Çalhanoğlu, and translator Fahri Öz (European Union Grant Scheme for Common Cultural Heritage, 2022) .

Poems in English Translation

  • "Encirclings" (trans. Murat Nemet-Nejat from "An Organ of Quality") published in an anthology of Mediterranean poets Circle Surface Sun: From Somewhere in the Mediterranean, eds. Irena Eden & Stijn Lernout (Schlebrügge.Editor, 2020) .

References

External links