Mehmet Sıraç Bilgin

Mehmet Sıraç Bilgin (1944–2015) was a Kurdish poet and politician. He was a prisoner several times until he went into exile to Sweden where he worked as an X-ray technician. He was a descendant of a leader of the Sheikh Said rebellion.

Early life and education He was born in 1944 in Syria where his father Abdulhamit was in exile. At the age of six he entered one year into an Armenian school in Syria. The next year, after an amnesty allowed it, the family returned to Turkey where they settled in Bingöl. He began to study medicine at the Ankara University but after two months of studies, he was expelled for political activities. In 1966 he successfully appealed his expulsion, but was not allowed to follow up on his studies. In 1979 he graduated as a medic from the Dicle University in Diyarbakir. He established himself as a doctor in Bingöl until he left to exile to Sweden in the 1980s.

Literary career and exile While in exile he took up writing and became a contributor to the pro-Kurdish newspaper Özgür Gündem.