Hrant dink biography sample
•
INTERVIEW: Tuba Çandar on her biography of killed journalist Hrant Dink
William Armstrong - william.armstrong@hdn.com.tr
People hold placards reading "We all are Hrant, we all are Armenians" in front of the Istanbul office of weekly newspaper Agos during a rally commemorating Hrant Dink 10 years after his assassination. AFP photo
The work of Armenian-origin Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was as important as his death was tragic. As editor of the weekly newspaper Agos, Dink helped break new ground in the late 1990s and early 2000s before he was shot dead outside the Agos office by a young ultranationalist 10 years ago on Jan. 19.Tuba Çandar’s biography of Dink (reviewed in HDN here) gives a detailed, moving account of his life and work. Çandar spoke to the Hürriyet Daily News about writing the book and Dink’s legacy.
The book is written in a unique way, using the voices of Dink’s friends, family and colleagues, as well as his own work, t
•
I was a freshman in college when I got the news in class.
“Hrant Dink was shot dead today,” the e-mail simply read, accompanied by a BBC News report link.
I remember leaving class early that day and heading down to my department’s student center, where the news of the assassination was on the massive television screen high up on the wall.
The headline “TURKISH-ARMENIAN JOURNALIST SLAIN IN ISTANBUL” didn’t seem to interest the hordes of students there, who were eagerly waiting for the weekend to arrive on that cold Friday morning. The crowds didn’t budge about what had just happened because they likely did not know who Dink was. I had only learned about the man lying face down on the pavement in front of his office a few years earlier.
That night, I felt compelled to do something inom had never done before. Writing had always been something that I enjoyed, but had never really done much of outside of school. But that day, for some reason, 18-year-old me needed to put pen
•
Hrant Dink was born in Malatya on September 15, 1954. He moved to Istanbul with his family when he was five years old. After his mother and father were separated, Hrant Dink and his two brothers went to live at the Gedikpasa Armenian Protestant Church Nursery School. The three brothers all attended Incirdibi Primary school, which was run by the same church, in winter time and lived at the Tuzla Armenian Childrens Camp of the school during their summers. Hrant Dink graduated from Bezciyan junior high school and studied at the Surp Hac Tibrevank boarding school before he completed his high school education at Sisli High.
He married Rakel Yagbasan, originally from the Armenian Varto tribe from Silopi in the Southeast of Turkey. They had three children. Dink studied zoology and philosophy at Istanbul Universitys Faculty of Science. He abandoned his dreams of a biological philosopy department at the university at the expense of his active engagement in the developing politics of the