Tarık Günersel, who was born in Istanbul on June 27, 1953, acquired his love for literature, theater and opera thanks to his mother Güngör Tanyeri. He is proud of the writing process of his grandfather Necmeddin Günersel's work called "Destiny and Will", his father İsmet Günersel's sense of humor in the political scene, and his uncle Dr.
He was also influenced by Saffet Günersel's translation experience. After studying at Kadıköy Maarif College, he completed high school in America with an AFS scholarship, and then graduated from Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters, Department of English Language and Literature. Günersel, whose poems were first published in Birikim magazine by Murat Belge, married translator Füsun Günersel in 1978 and gave birth to writer and educational psychologist Adalet Barış Günersel in 1980. He taught English in Saudi Arabia for four years between 1982 and 1986.
Günersel, who exhibited a versatility that shaped his artistic life in many areas, worked as a dramaturg and actor at Istanbul City Theaters between 1991 and 2014, and retired in the summer of 2014. His first libretto, "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", which he wrote for Selman Ada to compose when he was 15, is an opera in two acts; Then, he wrote the librettos of the works "Mavi Nokta Poetic Opera" in 1993, "Aşk‑ı Memnu Opera" in 2002 and "Another Planet" in 2013.
The Ada-Günersel duo has also undertaken projects such as “The Overcoat” (2018), inspired by Gogol, and “9 Mirrors” (2019), consisting of nine nano-operas. As a translator, he translated the works of authors such as Perry Anderson, Samuel Beckett, Tim Burton, Arthur Miller, Václav Havel and William Shakespeare into Turkish.
Günersel, who served as PEN Türkiye Center President in 2007‑2009 and 2011‑2014, was elected as a member of the International Board of Directors at the PEN Congress in Tokyo in 2010‑2012. The poetry workshop he founded in Istanbul in 1992 turned into the Poetry Space Laboratory in 1996, leading to the emergence of the idea of "World Poetry Day"; This proposal was accepted at the PEN Türkiye General Assembly in 1997 and was added to the calendar as March 21 by UNESCO in 1999.
He wrote columns in Birgün newspaper between 2005 and 2019, and in the same year, he was awarded the "Crystal Seagull" award by Kadıköy Maarif College and Anatolian High School Alumni Association.
The "Tiyatro Su TH20" formation, which he started in 2005, developed as an amateur company with the artists he invited in 2011 and staged the play "Sociology of Shit". In 2014, he premiered the play "Milyaryıl" with Onur Somay at the Ethos International Ankara Theater Festival. The artist is known as one of the important figures of Turkish literature and theater with his versatile works in both the stage and writing worlds.
Tarık Günersel was born on June 27, 1953 in Istanbul, Türkiye.
Productions in which he took part
- Dream Travelers (1992) — Necdet
- Cumhuriyet (1998) — Salih Bozok
- Yellow Smile (1992) — Halûk
- Long Possibility (2009)
- While Abdulhamid Is Falling (2003) — Mabeyn Chief Secretary Ali Cevat
- A Dead Sea (1989) — Tahir
- Gravitational Loves (1996)
- Makeshift Bride Ladik (2018)
- Gravity Loves: Kazandibi Tavukgöğsü (1996)
Production and imprint information was taken from TMDB.
