Zafer Şenocak spent his early childhood in Ankara and Istanbul. In 1970, the family moved to Munich. Şenocak attended high school in Munich and then studied German studies, political science and philosophy. Since 1979, he has toured with public readings of German poems. He also writes short stories, novels and essays and translates Turkish writers who first were published in the literary magazine Siren, which he co-edited since 1988. From the early 1990s onward, he earned wider renown through numerous journalistic articles on Turkish identity in modernity and the Islamic cultural tradition.

Zafer Şenocak has been a member of the Verbandes Deutscher Schriftsteller since 1984. His awards include a Literaturstipendium der Stadt München 1984, a residency program of the Berliner Senats, and the Chamisso Prize.

Şenocak was writer-in-residence in the United States at institutions such as MIT/Cambridge, Oberlin College, Dartmouth College and Berkeley. He writes regularly for the taz and the Berliner Zeitung, Die Woche, and Die Welt. He has lived as a freelance writer in Berlin since 1990.