Everything But You

Odabasi is a Kurdish writer originally from Diyabakir. He was first imprisoned in 1980 during which time he was allegedly tortured. He appeared in court in 1987 to appeal against a seven-year sentence for his alleged involvement in the Socialist Party, a conviction that was eventually overturned. After his imprisonment in Bursa and Saray prisons in 1999 he wrote a public protest of prison conditions. He referred to Bursa as a castle of oppression and told of the deaths of two fellow inmates, one of ill treatment and another from poor living conditions. Odabasi started writing in the late 1970s and has since written a number of collections of short stories and poems, a number of which have led to literary awards. In the mid-1980s he ran a bookshop in Diyabakir, and has also worked as a journalist, including at the Diyabakir office of the Turkish Daily News. He moved to Ankara in the early 1990s.