Barbaros Altug is an open gay author worked in several newspapers and monthly magazines as an editor and critic. He was a columnist at Taraf daily of Ahmet Altan for two years. He lives in Berlin since 2018 and granted a scholarship from PEN Writers in Exile, Germany.
He won the first literature award with his short storis in 1999 from Ankara Short Story Days. His first book of articles on popular culture, travels and art “Some Like It Black” was published in 2012, his first novel “we’re fine here” in 2014 in Turkish and it has been translated into German. He also published an anthology in Turkish and it has been translated into Greek and Bulgarian under the name “Istanbul of Writers”.
He lived in Paris for one year between 2016-2017 and finished his second novel that takes place between Paris-Istanbul and Yerevan. He is awarded with a travel grant in February 2019 by Hrant Dink Foundation for this second novel “Scabs on the Soul” on Armenian Genocide. It is published in Germany by Orlanda Verlag in 2020.
His third nove "Auslander" is focusing the lives of intellectuals who flee the country after 2016 coup d’etat and is published in German and also in Turkish. He was given a residency grant to focus on his works by Writers Unlimited in Den Haag by an international jury in 2020.
He was awarded the Berlin Senate’s non-German author stipendium for 2024 with his novel The Darkest Night of a Long Winter, an adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice to nowadays Istanbul and it is published in 2025 in Turkish , and in 2026 in German.nHis articles on travels, cities, people and places were published in Hurriyet, Radikal, Tagesspiegel, Kulturaustausch and other daily and monthly magazines.
What brought you to Berlin? Love? World politics? Or was it a coincidence?
Berlin itself and we are still in a love-hate relationship with her, like most great love stories.
What do you love about Berlin?
Berghain.
What do you miss in Berlin?
The sea, seagulls, street cats, smiling faces and my childhood.
What is your favorite spot in Berlin?
Minoa Bookstore in Prenzlauerberg.
Would you say you are a different person in Berlin? A different translator? And if yes, in what way?
I think not only authors but all people are different when they live in another country.
Which existing literary work do you wish you had written?
Breakfast at Tiffany's.
