Aras Ören

Aras Ören — Biography

Aras Ören, born in Istanbul, is a poet, writer and journalist living in Berlin, and he has also acted. He writes in Turkish, and some of his books were published in Germany in German. In 1985 he received the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize, awarded in Germany to writers whose first language is not German.

He settled in Berlin in 1969. He worked as an editor at Sender Freies Berlin and later headed the Turkish editorial team of Radio Multikulti at Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg. In the 1970s he published What does Niyazi want in Naunynstrasse (1973), Privatexil (1976) and Germany. A Turkish fairy tale (1978), followed by Please, No Police (1981). Berlin-Savignyplatz (1995) and Longing for Hollywood (1999) followed; the story collection Kopfstand (2014) and Wir neuen Europäer (2016), which gathers his writing since the 1960s, were printed with drawings by the artist Wolfgang Neumann.

He takes part in the German translation of his texts. In 1981 he received an honorary prize from the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, in 1999 he taught at the University of Tübingen, and since 2012 he has been a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin. On screen he appeared in a 1975 Tatort episode and in High Society Limited (1982).