Hasan Ali Toptaş is a prominent Turkish novelist and short story writer, born on 15 October 1958 in Baklan, southwest Anatolia. He is the son of a truck driver. After completing his military service, he took on various odd jobs until he secured a position at the Office of Inland Revenue. He worked in various small towns as a bailiff and treasurer, and finally as a tax officer.

Toptaş's literary career began with the publication of his first short story book, Bir Gülüşün Kimliği (The Identity of A Laugh), in 1987. A renowned Turkish scholar, Yıldız Ecevit, refers to him as "a postmodern modernist" and "a Kafka in Turkish literature," in her work Türk Romanında Postmodernist Açılımlar (The Postmodernist Expansion in Turkish Literature).

His second novel, Gölgesizler (1995), won the Yunus Nadi Prize and was later adapted into a feature film in 2007. Toptaş has received many other awards, including the Cevdet Kudret Literary Award for his novel Bin Hüzünlü Haz (1999) and the Orhan Kemal Novel Prize.