Farhi was born to a
Sephardic Jewish family in
Ankara,
Turkey, in 1935. He received a B.A. in humanities from
Robert Academy,
Istanbul, in 1954. He came to the UK in the same year and trained at the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1956 and settling in London. After a brief career as an actor, he took up writing. He wrote several novels, including
Children of the Rainbow (1999) and
Journey through the Wilderness (1989).
Children of the Rainbow received two prizes: the "Amico Rom" from the Associazione Them Romano of Italy (2002), and the "Special" prize from the Roma Academy of Culture and Sciences in Germany (2003). The French edition of
Young Turk (
Jeunes Turcs) received the 2007 Alberto Benveniste Prize for Literature. His poems have appeared in many British, US and European publications and in the anthology of 20th-century Jewish poets,
Voices Within the Ark (Avon, US, 1979). He also published short stories in anthologies and magazines in the UK, the US and Poland. He wrote many television scripts such as
The Onedin Line 1972 episode "Beyond the Upper Sea"; a film,
The Primitives; and a stage play,
From The Ashes of Thebes. Farhi's essay, "The Courage To Forget", appeared in
Index on Censorship (Vol. 24, No. 2, 2005). "God Save Us From Religion" is included in the collection
Free Expression is No Offence (edited by
Lisa Appignanesi, published by Penguin Books, 2005). "All History is the History of Migration", given at the "Know Your Place?" Conference in November 2005, was also published by
Index on Censorship in 2006. Farhi's works have been translated into Arabic, Dutch, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Turkish. He donated part of his personal library, consisting of more than 19,000 books, to
Boğaziçi University. For more than 25 years Farhi campaigned, from the ranks of English
PEN Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC), for writers persecuted and/or imprisoned by repressive regimes. Between 1994 and 1997, he served as Chair of the English WiPC; and between 1997 and 2000, as Chair of International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee. In November 2001, he was elected a vice-president of International PEN. He was appointed as a
Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) on 16 June 2001 in the Queen's
Birthday Honours List, for services to literature. He was a Fellow of both
The Royal Society of Literature (elected in 2001) and of
The Royal Geographical Society. Farhi also briefly worked on the BBC's science fiction series
Doctor Who during its early stages of production in 1963. He drafted scripts for the serial "
Farewell, Great Macedon" and the stand-alone episode "
The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance", neither of which ultimately entered production. Audio adaptations of these scripts would later appear in 2010 as
The First Doctor Boxset as part of the
Doctor Who: The Lost Stories line released by
Big Finish Productions. ==Personal life==