Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann is extremely happy to welcome our honorary member and poet İlhan Sami Çomak back to freedom!
Çomak has been imprisoned for over 30 years in Türkiye. Detained from 1994 at the age of 21, he was freed on 26th November after serving 30 years in prison.
In August, the prison administration blocked his conditional release after concluding that Çomak was not in “good behavior”. After an appeal by his attorneys, the Silivri Court of Penal Enforcement overturned the decision.
İlhan Sami Çomak is a prize-winning poet, recipient of the Sennur Sezer poetry prize (1999), the Metin Altıok prize (2022) and the Norwegian Authors’ Union Freedom of Expression award (2022).
He is member of the Writers’ Union of Turkey, prize-winning playwright and honorary member of the following PEN Centres: PEN Norway, Wales PEN Cymru, Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann, PEN Sydney and PEN Austria.
From the Norsk PEN website: “He has been in poetic conversation by letter with over 80 world-renowned poets and has a huge poetic family extending all over the globe.”
From prison, İlhan Sami Çomak has published nine books of poetry. His last collection, Separated from the sun, has been translated by Canan Maraşlıgil, Öykü Tekten, İdil Karacadağ, Sevda Akyüz, Şakir Özüdoğru, Paula Darwish, Clifford Endres and Caroline Stockford. More details and to order your copy, please click here.
Words That Walk Through Walls: World poets writing with Ilhan Sami Çomak
An anthology of poems written by, for and with imprisoned Kurdish poet Ilhan Sami Çomak began when Ilhan’s translator, the poet Caroline Stockford, started to write a series of ‘call and response’ poems with Ilhan, where one wrote a stanza and the other wrote a stanza in response. Working for PEN Norway/ Norsk PEN and with the Free the Poet campaign, Caroline then invited other poets from all over the world – including Ireland –to write to and for Ilhan. None of this would have been possible without the hard work and dedication of both Caroline and Ipel Özel, Ilhan’s Mackenzie Friend. Words That Walk Through Walls is the culmination of this wonderful project. Published by Palewell Press, it is available here.
During the recent Dublin Book Festival, Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann hosted an event in support of Ilhan. Participants included Burhan Somnez, President of PEN International, Caroline Stockford, Ipek Özel and Paula Meehan, Chaired by Catherine Dunne. This event was supported by the DublinBook Festival and by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.
Congratulations and immense thanks to everyone who showed support and solidarity.