Birhan Keskin was born in Kırklareli, a town on the European side of Turkey in 1963. A graduate of the literature department of Istanbul University, she published her first poem in 1984. Between 1995 and 1998, she published the literary journal Göçebe (Nomad), and has worked as the editor of numerous publications. Her poetry books include Y’ol (Y’ol ), Soğuk Kazı (The Cold Excavation), and Fakir Kene (The Poor Tick), all from Metis Publishers. Keskin’s book Ba won the Altın Portakal (Golden Orange) poetry prize in Turkey in 2006. Her Soğuk Kazi won the Metin Altıok poetry prize in 2016.

Murat Nemet-Nejat is the editor and translator of Eda: An Anthology of Contemporary Turkish Poetry (Talisman 2004). Poet, translator, and essayist, his recent publications include the poetry books The Spiritual Life of Replicants (Talisman), Animals of Dawn (Talisman) and Io’s Song (Chax); translations of Ece Ayhan’s A Blind Cat Black and Orthodoxies (Green Integer) and Birhan Keskin’s Y’ol (Spuyten Duyvil); and the essays The Peripheral Space of Photography (Green Integers) and “A Dialogue with Olga” (Olga Chernysheva/ Vague Accent, The Drawing Center).