Mustafa Zıyalan was born on the Black Sea coast of Turkey. He worked as a general doctor and coroner in a rural Anatolian village and now lives and practices psychiatry in New York. He has worked with torture victims, prison inmates, delinquent children, pathological gamblers, and people with AIDS. His poetry, short fiction, and essays have appeared in many literary periodicals, anthologies (most recently in
New European Poets from Graywolf Press), and books.