Özgecan Kesici

bio

Özgecan Kesici-Ayoubi (she/her) was born in Munich to Kazakh-Turkish parents. After spending a substantial part of her adult life in Dublin, she now lives in Berlin.

She is the recipient of an Irish Arts Council Agility Award and the Literature Bursary for her poetry. Her work has been published in Banshee Press, Salmon Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review and is forthcoming in Gorse.

Her translations from Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç’s debut poetry collection, Prinzenbad (Elif Verlag, 2022), have been published in Asymptote, Sand Journal and Magma Poetry. Her English-language translation of the full collection is forthcoming with Broken Sleep Books (2026).

For her debut novel, Silver is Lighter, a historical female epic, she was awarded a 2022 Berlin Senate Literature Work Stipend.

She is represented by Brian Langan (Storyline Literary Agency).

Özgecan holds a PhD in Sociology from University College Dublin on the Kazakh Alash Movement, 2017.

She speaks Kazakh, Turkish, English, German, French, and Russian.

Feel free to reach out at ozgecan.kesici (at) gmail (dot) com.