Haldun Taner

Who was Haldun Taner?

Haldun Taner is a well-known Turkish playwright and short story writer. He was born on March 16, 1915 in Istanbul. After graduating from the Galatasaray High School in 1935, he studied politics and economy at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, until a serious health problem forced him to return to Turkey, where he graduated from the Faculty of German Literature and Linguistics in 1950. He also studied theatre and philosophy at the University of Vienna between 1955 and 1957 under the direction of Heinz Kindermann, an Austrian theater and literary scholar.

As a well-disciplined writer accumulating a rich blend of culture, Taner wrote a great number of stories, generally humorous; essays, newspaper columns, travel writings and theatre plays, in particular, brought him several important awards including the New York Herald Tribune Story Contest First Prize, the Sait Faik Story Award, the International Festival of the Humor of Bordighera Award, and so on. Among his plays, the most popular is Keşanlı Ali Destanı. His stories have been translated into German, French, English, Russian, Greek, Slovanian, Swedish, and Hebrew.