Nil Burak

Nil Burak — Biography

Pembe Nihal Munsif, known on stage as Nil Burak, was born on 27 April 1948 in Lefke, Cyprus, the youngest of three children; her father was one of the island's early cinema operators and citrus growers. She took up music in primary school, singing in the choir of the Cyprus Fine Arts Association. After graduating from the American Girls' College in Cyprus she went to England to study languages, and made her first amateur stage appearance at a restaurant in London.

On a 1975 holiday in Istanbul she performed at Playboy, then the city's leading nightclub; her stage name is said to have been given to her that night by Zeki Müren. She later worked at the Maksim casinos and, beginning with 45s, built a run of hits including Boş Vere Boşvere, Yalnızım Ben and her signature song Sen de Başını Alıp Gitme. She won a special prize at a 1982 festival in Chile, took first place for Turkey with Güneş Bir Kere Doğdu at the 1985 Palermo Music Festival, and collected three awards at Ireland's Cavan festival in 1986. Touring for the Turkish foreign ministry, she performed across Europe, Russia, China and the Americas; her son Cemre was born in 1987 to her relationship with Şamil Tokses, and in 1990 she married D. Erkal Işıksal, a marriage that ended in 2011.

She settled back in Cyprus with her family in 1996 to work in tourism, then returned to the stage in 2008 with the album Bir Numaramsın. Her acting credits include the films Gülşah (1975) and Eksik Etek (1976) and the series Çalıkuşu (1986) and Avrupa Yakası (2004).