Efe Murad is a Turkish poet, translator, and scholar of Islamic intellectual history. He is currently Assistant Professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and an Associate at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He has previously held teaching positions at Wellesley College, New York University, and Harvard University, and is set to join Trinity College Dublin in July 2027 as Yunus Emre Assistant Professor of Turkish Cultural History. He is the author of six poetry collections and the translator of ten books into Turkish, including the first complete Turkish translation of Ezra Pound’s Cantos, as well as works by Jack Spicer, Thomas Bernhard, Susan Howe, and Lyn Hejinian. His bilingual poetry collection in Turkish and English Breaking of Symmetry, a collaboration with quantum physicist Sina Zeytinoğlu and poet-artist Sevinç Çalhanoğlu, was published in a limited edition funded by the European Union Grant Scheme for Common Cultural Heritage. His work in prose includes The Pleasures of Empty Lots (Bored Wolves Press, 2021), a book of creative non-fiction that blends memoir, flânerie, and poetic reflection on his native Istanbul.
His forthcoming book is an English translation of his Turkish cycle of poems “Encirclings” (Yüzüklemeler) translated by American poet and translator Murat Nemet-Nejat (Bored Wolves Press, 2027). Efe Murad translates from various languages, and his work bridges experimental poetics and found text with Islamic intellectual traditions across languages, disciplines, and geographies.