Poet, playwright, librettist, aphorist and translator.
After a year in the USA as an AFS student and studying English Literature and anthropology at Istanbul University, TG worked at Istanbul Metropolitan Theater as a dramaturg, actor and director. His works include the mosaic epic Breaths of Infinity (Sonsuzluk Solukları, Artshop 2021), short stories, and memoirs of Aramco-Saudi Arabia: Becoming Sand.
Co-founder of Poetic Space Lab and co-initiator of World Poetry Day in 1996 with Gülseli İnal, leading to the acceptance of UNESCO (preferring 21 March to 21 April) in 1999 -thanks to PEN Turkey Centre, Melbourne PEN, and PEN Int’l in 1997. Former president of PEN Turkey Center, in Tokyo he was elected to PEN Int’l Board in 2010.
Tarık Günersel’s plays include The Golden Fleece, Nero and Agrippina, Threat (on Tolstoy and Tolstaya) and Fate Planners. His stage adaptations include Thus Laughs Zarathustra, a monodrama based on Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
TG’s opera libretti include Dancing Anna Frank, composed by Daniel Galay and performed in Tel Aviv and those composed by Selman Ada: Ali Baba & 40 (Wupertal Opera, 2012), Blue Dot, and Hamlet (2021).
His translations include Perry Anderson’s Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (with Uğur Ün from French and English),
Vaclav Havel’s Leaving, Arthur Miller’s Mr Peterson’s Connections, Savyon Liebrecht’s The Banality of Love (on Hannah Arendt and Heidegger) and Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
In 2013 TG initiated the Earth Civilization Project inviting intellectuals from various parts of our planet. In 2019 he co-led the foundation of the 21st C Humanist Forum with Shahriar Kabir of Bangladesh. Honorary Member of the Hellenic Authors’ Society, TG is represented by ONK Agency.
His ‘life guide for himself ‘(Oluşmak/Becoming) consists of selected ideas from world history and wisdom, his aphorisms, and his daughter AB Günersel’s poem For the New Millennium.
TG is a literary consultant at Antalya Soulscience School, founded by Dr Murat Kemaloglu.
+90 538 821 75 40
