Journalist Başaran Düzgün publishes novel in Britain and is preparing his third book for 2027

Turkish Cypriot journalist Başaran Düzgün, who has worked in the profession for around 40 years, told the TAK news agency that his debut novel has been published in the United Kingdom in English translation, and that he is preparing his third book for 2027.

His first novel, «Öksüz Atlar Ülkesinde», was published in December 2024 and remained on Cyprus’s bestseller lists for a long time. In May this year, the British publishing house Olympia Publishers released its English translation under the title «Orphaned Horses Land». Düzgün’s second book, «Pembe Boyalı Oda», was published in February 2025.

The third novel, «Tanrının Öldüğü Yer», is scheduled for 2027. It is set shortly before and immediately after 1974, and is narrated by a journalist named Barış.

Düzgün turned to prose during the pandemic. According to him, the enforced pause gave him time to reconsider both his profession and his own life: the hustle and bustle that had existed before the pandemic came to a halt, creating a great deal of free time. At the same time, he believes, the press ceased to be the “fourth estate” and turned into a mouthpiece and propaganda apparatus, while the reader of a 30–40-page newspaper was replaced by a reader of a single paragraph on a phone.

Düzgün classifies his books as historical novels about Turkish Cypriots. He said that he deliberately visited all the locations where the stories take place: a monastery in the mountains of central Italy, a Polish military cemetery, and the village of Fasli above Polis, where he spent the night and talked at length with local residents.

In his novels, the writer identifies three “metaphors of orphanhood” in the history of Turkish Cypriots: 1878, when administration of the island passed to the British; the period of the Treaty of Lausanne, when part of the community left for Anatolia — a process that continued until 1934–1935; and the events beginning in December 1963, when people moved to neighbouring villages and three families lived in a single house. Düzgün notes that this part of history is not taught in schools.