Feride Çiçekoğlu
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Feride Çiçekoğlu | |
|---|---|
| Born | 27 January 1951 |
| Alma mater | Middle East Technical University University of Pennsylvania |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Employer | Istanbul Bilgi University |
Feride Çiçekoğlu (born 27 January 1951) is a Turkish writer and screenwriter. Following the 1980 Turkish coup d'état, she was detained for four years due to her political activism. Following her release, she published a book, Don't Let Them Shoot the Kite, based on her experiences in prison, which was subsequently adapted into the 1989 film of the same name.
Çiçekoğlu has since gone on to become a noted writer, translator and academic. With Xavier Koller, she co-wrote the screenplay of the 1990 film Journey of Hope, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Since 1999, Çiçekoğlu has been a professor at Istanbul Bilgi University, where her research focuses on the relationship between the city, women and cinema.
Çiçekoğlu was born on 27 January 1951 in Ankara, Turkey, to Hasan Kemal Çiçekoğlu, a retired Supreme Court judge, and Nihal Hanım (née Şuşud). After graduating from a Maarif college in 1968, she started studying architecture at Middle East Technical University. After receiving her bachelor's degree in 1973, Çiçekoğlu went on to obtain a master's degree in environmental psychology the following year. She received a Fulbright scholarship to pursue her doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. During her time in Philadelphia, Çiçekoğlu was introduced to leftist politics; her doctorate, received in 1976, was a critique of the city's planning process.[1][2][3]
Activism and imprisonment
By 1977, Çiçekoğlu had returned to Turkey, where she worked as an assistant at Ankara State Engineering and Architecture Academy (today, part of the engineering and architecture faculty at Gazi University), where she worked in 1979. On 12 September 1980, a military coup d'état occurred in Turkey, following which Çiçekoğlu was detained on charges of making communist propaganda. After being tortured for 55 days, she was imprisoned for four years, spending two years at Mamak Military Prison and two years at Ankara Central Prison in Ulucanlar.[4]