Behçet Aysan Poetry Award to be given to Egemen Berköz

The TTB Behçet Aysan Poetry Award, given by the Turkish Medical Association in memory of poet and doctor Behçet Aysan, who lost his life in the Sivas Massacre on July 2, 1993, will be presented to Egemen Berköz, one of our newspaper's writers, in 2023 with his book "Definitions of Loneliness", at a ceremony held at the Kadıköy Yeldeğirmeni Culture Center on Monday, February 24 (Today) at 19:00 due to health problems he has been experiencing.

The selection committee, consisting of Doğan Hızlan, Cevdet Çapan, Turgay Fişekçi, Ali Cengizkan, Haydar Ergülen and Ali İhsan Ökten, evaluated the 108 works that applied for the award as well as the books published in 2022 in their online meeting held on April 11, 2023; and deemed Berköz worthy of the award unanimously on the grounds that "Egemen Berköz, who always carries the voice of his nearly 65-year poetry endeavor as a torch, who constantly feeds this fire with detailed observations he captures from the layers of daily life, who makes the plural common beyond his own personality, and who reinforces his privileged place in Turkish poetry with his clear diction in this book, found it appropriate to give his book 'Yalnızlık Definitions'."