Talât S. Halman is Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Letters at Bilkent University in Ankara, where he has been teaching since 1998. He founded Bilkent's Department of Turkish Literature, serving as Chair and aiming to initiate and develop new critical approaches. Previous to his arrival at Bilkent, Professor Halman had had already a highly distinguished career. He was Turkey's first Minister of Culture, and inaugurated the Ministry. He later served as Turkey's first Ambassador of Cultural Affairs. He taught at Columbia University (where he had studied for his Master's degree), at Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and New York University. His awards and honours are many, and they include an honorary doctorate from Bosphorus University, a Rockefeller Fellowship, the UNESCO medal, and a Knight Grand Cross (GBE) granted to him by Queen Elizabeth. Professor Halman's engagement with English language and literature is long established and diverse. He is a member of the Poetry Society of America and of the Editorial Board of World Literature Today. He is a well-known translator of Turkish into English as well as from English into Turkish. His achievement, in this respect, is most notably attested by his verse translation, into Turkish, of Shakespeare's complete sonnets. Professor Halman's English-language books include two collections of his poems Shadows of Love and A Last Lullaby, as well as compilations of his scholarly articles Rapture and Revolution and The Turkish Muse, and many other books.