Selçuk Altun was born in Artvin,
Turkey, in 1950. A retired banking executive, bibliophile and book collector,
Altun served as a chairman of a major publishing house until his retirement in
2004. He is the author of four essay collections and ten novels including The
Sultan of Byzantium, which has been translated into more than fifteen
languages. He writes a popular monthly column for the Turkish periodical OT
called ‘For the Love of Books’. He lives in Istanbul.
Mel Kenne is a translator, editor
and author. He has translated works by Enis Batur, Latife Tekin and Birhan
Keskin. His collection South Wind won the 1984 Austin Book Award and in 2010 he
was a winner of the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Award. He lives in Turkey.
Nilgün Dungan is a lecturer and
translator. She has translated the works of Haydar Ergülen, Gülten Akın and
Behçet Necatigil, Müge İplikçi and Ahmet Büke. She lives in Izmir, Turkey.