Biography
Onat Kutlar was born in Alanya, Turkey in 1936. He was the grandson of Arif Pasha, an Ottoman governor of the Taif district and the son of Ali Riza Bey, a penal judge of the young Turkish Republic and later a farmer, and Meliha Hanim.
He grew up in the city of Gaziantep. He studied law at Istanbul University and philosophy in Paris. His book, Ishak (1959), composed of nine short stories, most of which are written from the point of view of a child and are often surrealistic and mystical was the recipient of the 1960 "Turkish Language Association Short Story Award". According to the literary critic Fethi Naci, these represent a very early example of magical realism genre. In 1985, he was a member of the jury at the 35th Berlin International Film Festival. In 1994, he was awarded with L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and in 1975 Cultural Medal of Poland for his work in the Turkish Sinematek.
He died on January 11, 1995 in Istanbul resulting from injuries sustained in a terrorist bomb attack (carried out by the terrorist organization PKK) which occurred on December 30, 1994 at The Marmara Hotel's cafeteria in Taksim. He was laid to rest at the Aşiyan Asri Cemetery.
Currently, the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) Prize in the National Competition of the Istanbul International Film Festival is named after him to commemorate his contributions to the Turkish cinema.
Read more about this topic: Onat Kutlar
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“The death of Irving, which at any other time would have attracted universal attention, having occurred while these things were transpiring, went almost unobserved. I shall have to read of it in the biography of authors.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)