Behçet Çelik was born in Adana, Turkey, in 1968. He graduated from Adana Anadolu High School in 1986 and the Istanbul University Faculty of Law in 1990. His first short story was published in Varlık, the oldest literary journal in Turkey still being published today.
His short-story collections include İki Deli Derviş (Two Crazy Dervishes, 1992), Yazyalnızı (Solitary Summer, 1996), Herkes Kadar (As Much As Anybody, 2002), Düğün Birahanesi (The Wedding Pub, 2004), and Gün Ortasında Arzu (Mid-Day Desire, 2007), for which he received the Sait Faik Award for Best Short Story Collection. Çelik’s first novel, Dünyanın Uğultusu (The Drone of the World), was published in 2009. This was followed by three short story collections, Diken Ucu (On Edge, 2010), Kaldığımız Yer (Where We Left Off, 2015), and Yolun Gölgesi (The Road’s Shadow, 2017), as well as the young adult novel Sınıfın Yenisi (The New Boy in Class, 2011), and a second novel, Soluk Bir An (A Pale Moment, 2012). He is also the editor of three collections of essays on literature, by himself and other prominent authors from Turkey. Several of Çelik’s short stories have been published in English in Aeolian Visions/Version: Modern Classics and New Writing from Turkey (eds. Mel Kenne, Saliha Paker, Amy Spangler, 2013). His story "Soğuk Bir Ateş" (A Cold Fire) has been translated into Dutch and published in the collection Stad en Mens, and a translation of his story "Çok Tanıdık, Çok Bildik” ("So Very Familiar") was included in the collection Istanbul Noir (Akashic Books, 2008).
