Burhan Sönmez was born in Turkey in 1965. His mother tongue is Kurdish, which has been stigmatised in Turkey for the past century. While practising law and campaigning for human rights, he was badly injured during a murder attempt by the Turkish police. He left the country and received treatment in Britain and there remained in exile for several years. Sönmez was awarded the Vaclav Havel Center “Disturbing the Peace” award in 2017 and his novel Istanbul, Istanbul won the E.B.R.D. Literature Prize. He is President of P.E.N. International and a Senior Member of Hughes Hall College and of Trinity College, University of Cambridge. Lovers of Franz K. is his sixth novel and the first written in Kurdish.

Burhan Sönmez is the author of Lovers of Franz K.