Biography

Mustafa Kutlu is the summit of Turkish short story writing. Born in 1947 in a small village of Erzincan, he spent his childhood in other small villages of Anatolia because of his father's office. During his literary life, he created a rich corpus concerning 17 short story books, 4 essays and 2 researches, translated in various languages and with 250.000 of sold copies in Turkey.

He won twice the Turkish Writers' Association Best Story Writer Award in 1981 and 1983 and his Long Story won the same Association's Language Award in 2000. Kutlu has a simple and enchanted language following Anatolian anectode tradition and his heroes are simple people he had catched the opportunity to recognize in his childhood. He is currently the editor in chief of Dergâh Culture and Literature Magazine he has been publishing since 1990 and also a columnist for two major Turkish papers. His story book Mavi Kuş (Blue Bird) has been adapted to cinema as script. He also writed scripts for TV and theater and produced TV shows.

Works

Uzun Hikaye
(Long Story)
Long Story is Kutlu's first long story as form. The work is about the long, agitating and touching adventure a child, who has in fact lost his mother, lives with his father. The story, in which feelings of justice are continually emphasized, is written in a narrative style. The father who wants his son to live a better life than himself sends him to the city, but fate brings the young man to the beginning of the path his father had followed.
Number of Pages > 115
Type > Short Story
Year of Edition > 2005 (11th edition)
ISBN > 975-7032-75-1
From the book

Menekşeli Mektup
(Violet Letter)
In this book by Mustafa Kutlu three stories take place: “The Letter with a Violet”, To be able to go on the Pilgramage to Mecca” and “Blood Drips on Blood”.
In the first story the sad marriage of a postman and the platonic love he feels for the wife of the owner of the house, he carries letters for is narrated.
The second story is about the Pilgramage Journey of a bus driver. Nobody helps the driver who has an accident on the way back. A hand from a most unexpected place, helps him succeed to get to his country. Kutlu here emphasizes  the unending merciful and patriotic feelings of Turkish people.
The last story is the adventure of two soldiers who join the famous Sarıkamış Campaign and are taken as prisoners of war by Russians. One of them gets ill and dies while the other is lost in Siberia.
Number of Pages > 161
Type > Short Story
Year of Edition > 2006
ISBN > 975-995-044-8

Chef
(Chief)
The author in this work has taken up the social atmosphere of Turkey after 1980’s. This atmosphere brings forth the passions and desires created by the consumption society. The book develops on stories explained by three members of a family. A bank manager father, a retired and house-wife mother and a son who has finished university and entered business-life with the desire to become rich quickly. The desire for gain, position and rank, power and security break the family to pieces. Each member goes on his own way. But where does this road end? The author leaving the end of the text open, doesn’t answer this question. He invites the reader to think about this matter.  
Number of Pages > 214
Type > Short Story
Year of Edition > 2006
ISBN > 975-995-014-6

Yoksulluk İçimizde
(Poverty is Inside Us)
We are feeding and raising up a happiness thought connected to carnal and materialistic pleasures. We enrich worldly discourse with uncountable details. The desires of flesh make us run towards things which spread different sparkles every moment. This savage race is the symbol of modern world. Poverty is Inside us deals with the realities of life talking about those who have a heart, love and places faraway.
Number of Pages > 96
Type > Short Story
Year of Edition >2000
ISBN > 975-7462-02-0

Yokuşa Akan Sular
(Water Flowing Up to Slopes)
Investigating the events which took place in the life of a worker, Cevher Bican and the ones around him in Kars, The Waters Which Flow Downhill deals with the materialistic-psychological social problems encountered in the transitition from agricultural to industrial period. It is a criticism of industrialization as well as the modernisation which will soon follow it, from the point of view of a dervish.
Number of Pages > 87
Type > Short Story
Year of Edition >2000
ISBN > 975-7462-65-9

Sır
(The Secret)
This work of Mustafa Kutlu is founded on the sufistic and formal characteristics of the “Story of the East”. The stories in the book are parts of a whole, as well as being independent stories by themselves.
The book, as a whole, reflects the drama of a sheikh. People from almost all classes of society are seen in the lodge of the dervish. A journalist, an academician, a politician and so on. The ties of these characters with the tekke, brings up their personal dramas as well. In Secret, a theme Kutlu has been working on for a long time, the social change adventure in Turkey and especially its outlook after the 1980’s is explained and criticized.
Number of Pages > 90
Type > Short Story
Year of Edition > 2004
ISBN > 975-7462-68-3

Mavi Kuş
(Blue Bird)
An old bus in a lonely village of Anatolia. People from all classes stuffed on the bus. A journey made to a train station around. The Blue Bird is the story of a journey. A cinematografic cross-section from the Turkey of 1950’s. The book is a long story which consists of a single essay.
Number of Pages > 211
Type > Short Story
Year of Edition > 2005
ISBN > 975-6611-37-5

Bu Böyledir
(This is This)
Events which take place in the life of a nuclear family explained in a lunaparc metaphor. The author stresses the main existence problem of human beings in the world, while criticizing the social change in our society.
Number of Pages > 80
Type > Short Story
Year of Edition > 2005
ISBN > 975-7462-00-4

Beyhude Ömrüm
(My Life in Vain)
Kutlu’s love for nature overlaps with the look of Anatolian men on nature and their vision of life. In the very depth of the story there is a metaphysical dimension  referring to the “mortality” issue. This is also a long story.
My Life in Vain, with its outer structure discusses a social issue, the migration fact and emptying of villages in Turkey. Essentially it is story of a "passion". The hero struggles to set up a garden in a desolate place on the top of a mountain.
Number of Pages > 212
Type > Short Story
Year of Edition > 2007 (10th edition)
ISBN > 975-6611-09-X

Tufandan Önce
(Before the Flood)
Before the Flood deals with the process of a ground breaking ceremony. The foremost people of the village participate in the adventure along with the politicians. The author’s fluent and warm writing style which can be easily perceived by readers of all levels makes the book easy to read, almost without taking a breath. Although Before the Flood deals with a political-bureaucratic and technical issue, examined deeply, it can be observed that it approaches to the different inclinations, desires and passions of human beings with an ironic attitude and sets forth a political parody. This work of Kutlu like the others doesn’t give priority to the hero, it is concerned with the society rather than the individual. Therefore we get acquinted with many story characters during the process explained. A crowded human–characters gallery adds richness to the work and creates a different atmosphere. The book is in the form of a long story which consists of a single essay.
Number of Pages > 208
Type > Short Story
Year of Edition > 2004 (5th edition)
ISBN > 975-7462-00-4

Rüzgârlı Pazar
(Windy Market Place)
Mustafa Kutlu who has published at least one book each year since 2000, meets his readers with The Windy Market Place. Long Story, My Life in Vain, Blue Bird and Before the Flood were the last works Kutlu had written in the form of a long story. Kutlu in those books has made an effort to create a new style, with the elements  tradition  had gained from the valley of folk story.
The “narrative” style  aims in a way to transform oral literature to a written text. Maybe, because it is written with this aim in mind, the language used in the texts adresses  readers of all levels and ages from seven to seventy. Differentiating from the other four works of the author The Windy Market Place has the characteristics of folk story changing to legend.
It would be appropriate to use the expression of "an urban legend" for this book. Mustafa Kutlu, who in his essays insistently gives priority to the issue of "extreme poverty", in this long story deals mainly with the theme of "poverty".  Although common in Turkey, poverty for some reason or other is never made a current issue. The urban poors hand over this bleeding chronic wound from generation to generation. The characters in The Windy Market Place are people who keep “poverty watch” in turn. Still the author leaves a place for love, solidarity and love, compassion and mercy. He doesn’t close the doors of hope completely in The Windy Market Place. The book with this identity presents a legendry story of love, solidarity and mercy.
Number of Pages > 185
Type > Short Story
Year of Edition > 2005
ISBN > 975-6611-80-4

Translated Works:
Kambur Hafız ve Minare (Hunchbacked Hafiz and Minaret): Moderne Turkse Verhalen /
         Holland, Uitgeverij Atlas
Mavi Kuş (Blue Bird): Iran, Ordibehest
Yıldız Tozu (Stardust): Germany
Bu Böyledir (This is This): Iran, Dünyayı Nov
Ya Tahammül Ya Sefer (Patience or Travel): Bosnia, Biblioteka Edeb