Yakup Almelek was born in Ankara in 1936 and attended Ankara College. After finishing high school, he moved to Istanbul with his family in 1955. He graduated from the School of Economics and Commerce in İstanbul and spent six months in Boston working for the Boston Gas Company.

In 1967, he founded his own company, now in its forty-second year.

Ever since middle school, he has written poetry, verse, marches, stories, newspaper articles and plays. While he was still at school, one of his articles won a competition and was published in Cumhuriyet newspaper. In the years that followed, more of his writing appeared in the newspaper. He now writes a regular column for Şalom.

One of his short stories has been turned into a film and three of his plays – The Businessman, The Awakening and The Governess – have been staged in Turkey. The Businessman was staged in English at the Richmond Shepard Theatre in New York in October 2009.

Yakup Almelek is married with two children.