Journalist, author. She
was born on the 22nd of December 1966. She is the daughter of the
pianist Gülay Uğurata (D. 1995). Her father is Behiç Çongar, a geology engineer
and chairman of the chamber of geology engineers. Çongar who graduated from
high school in USA started her journalism career in 1984 in ANKA News Agency.
During her journalism she graduated from the department of economics of Ankara
University Political Science Faculty. She was known with her political
activities around the university’s student association. Çongar has a master’s
degree from Georgetown University’s American Studies department in USA.
She wrote in magazines
of Yarın and Bilim ve Sanat which were known with their acquaintance with
Turkish Labor Party led by Behice Boran. She belonged to the group which
published Yarın. In this period she
was put on trial for “communism propaganda” in State Security Court of Istanbul
but was acquitted.
She worked as a
diplomacy reporter in ANKA. Later she worked in Cumhuriyet newspaper led by Hasan Cemal. She also made interviews
in Agos newspaper.
By the beginning of 1990
she went to London and started to work for BBC. Upon her return to Turkey she
became a manager in the research center called Strateji-Mori in Istanbul. Later
she quit and became one of the founders of Yeni
Yüzyıl newspaper. Then she passed to Milliyet
newspaper and aside from being a Washington reporter she was a columnist here. She not only wrote Monday articles about American
policies but also articles on literature, arts and daily life in newspaper’s
Sunday supplement. In 2007 her long interviews with novelists such as Orhan Pamuk,
Paul Auster and Salman Rushdie were published. She became a current issue in
2007 with her report about “Hudson Incident”. Çongar who is also CNN Turk's
Washington representative started in 2006 to present a monthly program called
"Burası Washington" in this television channel. Later she left CNN Turk
and joined the cadre of Taraf newspaper.
She started vice-general
directorate of Taraf newspaper in
2007. In this newspaper she wrote articles about politics called Ya Da and about books called Ex Libris. Çongar is married and has a
daughter.
WORKS:
Hırant Dink Cinayeti (with Avni Özgürel, Etyen Mahçupyan and Mehmet Altan, 2009), Çok Sevdiklerimiz, Yarım Bıraktıklarımız (2011).
