Cihan Aktaş

Cihan Aktas (born January 15, 1960) (Turkish: Cihan Aktaş) is a Turkish writer, researcher and journalist. She is the sister of Turkish poet and writer Umit Aktas.

Best known for her short story collections, Aktas has published more than forty books of fiction and non-fiction, including her best seller novel Write Long Letters To Me and her well-researched commentary book The Poetry of the East: Iranian Cinema which is an academic favorite on the subject. She was a political newspaper columnist in 1980's, focusing her research papers and articles on women who experienced a traumatic social transformation in Turkey; and has published several books on topics such as exploitation of women, gender and identity politics, and hijab in public space, as a hijabi woman herself.

Aktas has been described as a "strong feminist in a minimalist sense" and "usually has reached the climax of a longlasting problem."

She is married with two children and currently lives in Istanbul. She graduated from Beşikdüzü High School of Education at 1978, and moved to Istanbul with her family right after, where she studied architecture in Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and graduated in 1978. She was the creator and editor of women's issues section in Yeni Devir newspaper between years 1983–1985,

"Seattle Diaries" that chronicles Aktas' time in Seattle taking care of her grandson was published in 2020 following publication of two essay books about cinema earlier the same year: Beyond Dreams: Life, Symbols and Cinema and Films I remember.

Literary style and subjects Aktas' successive trilogy of autobiographical novels published between 2002 and 2012 are said to "represent three ages with regard to the personal and in terms of Turkey politics."

Awards In 1995, Aktas' The Final Magical Days received the Turkish Writers' Society's Short Story Award, and she was chosen as the Storyteller of the Year by the Genclik Magazine in 1997. Her first novel "Writer Long Letters To Me" was the recipient of 2002 Novel of the Year Award by the Turkish Writers' Society. A Flawless Picnic, her short story book was chosen as the 2009 Book of the Year by The Literature, Art and Culture Research Association. She received the Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar Prize at the 15th Bursa Literature Days in 2015 and the Necip Fazıl Kısakürek Novel and Short Story Award in 2016. Her book You'd Know if You Were My Daughter was awarded the Omer Seyfettin Short Story Award in the same year. Literature Prize.

Publications Novels/Diaries Write Long Letters To Me (2002) Someone Who Listens To You (2007) Close To the Border (2013) Shirin's Wedding (2016) Seattle Diaries (2020) The Poet and The Night Owl (2021) The Time Had Stopped in Cameroon (2025)

Short story collections A Child of Three Coups (1991) The Final Magical Days (1995) Suffering in the Face (1996) Last Days of Azize (1997) Doily in Water (1999) Shahrazad Has a Mouth but No Tongue (2001) Because I look Like My Aunt (2003) Rooms Without Walls (2005) A Flawless Picnic (2009) Humming in Footprints (2013) You'd Know If You Were My Daughter (2015) The one Standing Apart in Photographs (2017) The Unforgotten (2018) Kar Gibi Patiskalar (2024)

Essays/research/Journalism Fatima (1984) Zaynab (1985) The Woman at the Center of Exploitation (1985) Farewell Sermon (1985) The Woman Within the System (1988) Clothing and Power: From Ottoman Reforms to This Day (1989) Hijab and Society: An Essay on the Roots of Hijabi Students (1991) Homelessness of Modernism and the Necessity of Family (1992) On the Exhaustion of Privacy (1995) The Poetry of the East: Iranian Cinema (1998) From Sister to Lady: Muslim Women in Public Space (2001) Revolutionaries of Yesterday, Reformists of Today (2004) The Neighboring Stranger (2008) The Language of Fellowship (2010) Parenthesis of Power: Woman Language Identity (2008) Islamism/Something Else is Missing (2014) Eclipse of the City (2015) To Get Along with the Wind (2018) Beyond Dreams (2020) Films I remember (2020) Scheherazade in Balcony (2024) To Get Along with the Wind (reprint) (2024) The Streets Won't Forget (2024)