Reşat Nuri Güntekin

Reşat Nuri Güntekin (Turkish pronunciation: [ɾeˈʃat nuːˈɾi ɟynteˈcin]) (25 November 1889 – 7 December 1956) was a Turkish novelist, storywriter, and playwright. His best known novel, Çalıkuşu ("The Wren", 1922) is about the destiny of a young Turkish female teacher in Anatolia. This work is translated into Persian by Seyyed Borhan Ghandili. His other significant novels include Dudaktan Kalbe ("From the Lips to the Heart", 1925), and Yaprak Dökümü ("The Fall of Leaves", 1930). Many of his novels have been adapted to cinema and television. Because he visited Anatolia with his duty as an inspector, he knew Anatolian people closely. In his works he dealt with life and social problems in Anatolia; reflects people in the human-environment relationship. His father was a medical doctor Doktor Nuri Bey. Reşat Nuri attended primary school in Çanakkale, the Çanakkale Secondary School and the İzmir School of Freres. He graduated from Istanbul University, Faculty of Literature in 1912. He worked as a teacher and administrator at high schools in Bursa and Istanbul, he taught literature, French and philosophy; then he worked as an inspector at the Ministry of National Education (1931). He served as the deputy of Çanakkale between 1933 and 1943 in the Turkish Parliament, the chief inspector at the Ministry of National Education (1947), and a cultural attaché to Paris (1950), when he was also the Turkish representative to UNESCO.

After his retirement, he served at the literary board of the Istanbul Municipal Theatres. Reşat Nuri Güntekin died in London, where he had gone to be treated for his lung cancer. He is buried at the Karacaahmet Cemetery in Istanbul.