In 2024, he published Lovers of Franz K., his first novel, which he wrote in his mother tongue Kurdish after writing five books in Turkish.
He was a member of the Human Rights Society (IHD) and a founder of TAKSAV (Foundation for Social Research, Culture and Art).
Sönmez was arrested and detained by the Turkish authorities while a student in 1984, and again while working as a human rights lawyer.
[6] Following the attack, he left Turkey, eventually ending up in Britain where he learnt English and received treatment with the support of the charity Freedom from Torture.
His unique experience of growing up in a remote village with no electricity, and having a talented storyteller for a mother, has provided perspective, inspiration and material for his writing.
He has written for various newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, La Repubblica.
Eastern folk tales and legends have been woven into the story, which questions and reflects the nature of identity, reality and existence.
It tells the myths and legends of the East in a realistic fashion, and is based around philosophical debates on existence and love that have a central importance in solving the mystery.
Sins and Innocents tells the story of two people whose lives have been running through Haymana Plain, Tehran and Cambridge.
In modes of thought suggested by Althusser and Manuel Castells, the city of Istanbul is the site of reproduction for pain, misery, melancholy and hope.
It is the story of Boratin, a blues singer, who attempts suicide by jumping off the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, but opens his eyes in hospital.
Labyrinth, embroidered with Borgesian micro-stories, flows smoothly on the surface while traversing sharp bends beneath the current.
His life journey gets involved with many other lives that reflects different cultural backgrounds including Christians, Sunni Muslims, Alawites, Turks, Kurds, Armenians.
Alongside the contemporary period, the story of different times like Ottoman era, and of different places in the Middle East and Europe eventually creates an encompassing historical map of many different societies.
Lovers of Franz K. is a thriller of love and literary revenge in the map of Paris-Istanbul-West Berlin and Tel Aviv, set in the midst of the Cold War in 1968.
While the youth uprising sweeps across Europe, a debate about Franz Kafka appears in student magazines in Paris.
There is a secret group that punishes ex-Nazi criminals, and they begin to argue that they should also protect the dead writers and act for their spirit.
He is moving towards being the same for Turkey as Gabriel Garcia Marquez is for Colombia, Naguip Mahfouz for Egypt, Carlos Fuentes is for Mexico, Mo Yan is for China."
“His novels are steeped in imprisonment and memory, with echoes of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and George Louis Borges.” Jason Farago, The New York Times.
[13] "Labyrinth, like many fictional works written in reaction to political oppression, is an allegory that explores the fractured nature of the individual in a society suspended between a rich, complicated past and an uncertain future."
Ümran Küçükislamoğlu, T24 News (Turkey) "Burhan Sonmez opens the door of wounded memory of Kurds.
Dervis Aydin Akkoc, Ozgur Gundem (Turkey) "If Yasar Kemal wrote this novel he would keep the same way of wording but it would last hundreds of pages.