Yaşar Kemal

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Expand Turkish Template:Infobox writer Yaşar Kemal (Template:IPAc; born Kemal Sadık Gökçeli;<ref name="yasarkemalnet" /> 6 October 1923 – 28 February 2015) was a leading Turkish writer of Kurdish descent, who wrote in Turkish <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and a human rights activist.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He received 38 awards during his lifetime and had been a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature on the strength of his 1955 novel Memed, My Hawk.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="yasarkemalnet">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

An outspoken intellectual, he often did not hesitate to speak about sensitive issues, especially those concerning the oppression of the Kurdish people.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He was tried in 1995 under anti-terror laws for an article he wrote for Der Spiegel highlighting the Turkish Army's destruction of Kurdish villages during the Turkish–Kurdish conflict. He was released but later received a suspended 20-month jail sentence for another article he wrote criticising racism in Turkey, especially against the Kurds.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=tdngermans>Template:Cite news</ref>

Early life and education

Template:History of Turkish literature Yaşar Kemal was born Kemal Sadık Gökçeli to Sadık and Nigâr on 6 October 1923 in Hemite (now Gökçedam),<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="h2"/><ref name="ReferenceA">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> a Turkmen<ref name = "Çelik">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> hamlet in the province of Osmaniye in southern Turkey.<ref name=":0" /> He was born into the only Kurdish family in the village<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":0" /> but didn't face discrimination despite his ethnic difference.<ref name = "Çelik" /> Kemal had a difficult childhood, and his family had to flee from Van province to Diyarbakır province. From there, they were deported to Adana province.<ref name=":03">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He lost his right eye in a knife accident while his father was slaughtering a sheep for Eid al-Adha. When he was five years old he witnessed his father being stabbed to death by his adoptive son Yusuf while praying in a mosque.<ref name=yasarkemalnet/> These traumatic experiences left Kemal with a speech impediment, which lasted until he was twelve years old. At nine, Kemal began school in a neighbouring village; he continued his formal education in Kadirli in Osmaniye province.<ref name=yasarkemalnet/>

Kemal was a locally noted bard even before he began school but was unappreciated by his widowed mother until he composed an elegy on the death of one of her eight brothers, all of whom were bandits.<ref name=bosquet>Template:Cite book</ref> He became interested in writing as a means to record his work after talking to an itinerant peddler, who was doing his accounts. His village paid his way to university in Istanbul.<ref name=bosquet/>

He worked for a while for rich farmers as a labourer in the Çukurova cotton fields, ostensibly guarding river water against poor farmers' unauthorised use for irrigation. However, he actually taught the poor farmers how to steal the water undetected, by taking it at night.<ref name=bosquet/> Later he worked as a letter-writer, then as a journalist, and finally as a novelist. The Turkish police confiscated his first two novels.<ref name=bosquet/> In 1950, Kemal was imprisoned for alleged communist activities.<ref name="theguardian.com">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He visited Akdamar Island in 1951, where he saw the beginning of the planned demolition of the island's Holy Cross Church. Using his contacts, he helped stop the demolition (the church was restored by the Turkish government in 2005).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Professional and political career

He then moved to Istanbul to work for the Cumhuriyet newspaper, where he adopted his pen name.

In 1962, Kemal joined the Workers Party of Turkey (TİP) and "served as one of its leaders until quitting after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 1967, Kemal established the Marxist magazine Ant together with Dogan Özgüden and Fethi Naci.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> The magazine published articles about Engels, Marx, Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara.<ref>Landau, Jacob M. (2016), p.68</ref> In the aftermath of the military coup in 1971, the magazine was closed during the crackdown on left-wing politicians.<ref name=":1" /> Because of the spate of political assassinations during the 1976–1980 political violence in Turkey, Kemal moved to Sweden for a time. He was often arrested for his political activities.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> In 1995, he was prosecuted for making separatist propaganda after writing an article for Index on Censorship, because of his support for Kurdish dissidents. He was sentenced to 20 months and received a suspended sentence in March 1996.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In December 2000, he was involved in negotiations over the hunger strikes against the F-Type prisons.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Later years and death

On 14 January 2015, Kemal was hospitalised at Istanbul University's Çapa Medical Faculty, due to respiratory insufficiency. During the afternoon of 28 February 2015, he died in the intensive care unit, where he had been admitted for multiple organ dysfunction syndrome,<ref name="h1"/> Following a religious funeral service held at Teşvikiye Mosque, attended by former Turkish president Abdullah Gül, political party leaders, high-ranking officials and an enormous assembly of mourners, he was buried on 2 March 2015 beside his first wife Thilda's grave in Zincirlikuyu Cemetery.<ref name="h2"/><ref name="bbc1"/><ref name="aa1"/> Kemal was survived by his wife Ayşe Semiha Baban and his adoptive son, visual artist Ahmet Güneştekin.<ref name="ah1"/>

Works

Template:Rquote In 1943 Kemal published his first book Ağıtlar ("Ballads"), a compilation of folkloric themes. This book brought to light many long-forgotten rhymes and ballads, which he had begun to collect at the age of sixteen.<ref name=yasarkemalnet/> He penned his first tale Pis Hikaye ("The Dirty Story") in 1944 while serving in the military in Kayseri. His stories Bebek ("The Baby"), Dükkancı ("The Shopkeeper") and Memet ile Memet ("Memet and Memet") were published in 1950. Then he published a book of short stories Sarı Sıcak ("Yellow Heat") in 1952. His books initially focused on the lives, sufferings and toil of the people of the Çukurova plain. Kemal used the legends and stories of Anatolia extensively as the basis for his works.<ref name=yasarkemalnet/>

In 1955 he received international acclaim with the publication of Memed, My Hawk (Template:Langx). In this book, Kemal criticised the fabric of society via a protagonist who flees to the mountains as a result of the oppression of the ağas. Kemal won nineteen literary prizes over his lifetime, and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973 by Dag Strömbäck and Per Wästberg.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The novel was adapted into a 1984 film of the same name, starring Peter Ustinov.

His 1955 novel Teneke was adapted into a theatrical play, which ran for almost a year in Gothenburg, in Sweden, the country in which he lived for about two years in the late 1970s.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Italian composer Fabio Vacchi adapted the same novel with its original title into a three-act opera, which premiered at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy, in 2007.

Personal life

In 1952, Yaşar Kemal married Thilda Serrero,<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> a member of a prominent Sephardi Jewish family in Istanbul. Her grandfather, Jak Mandil Pasha, was the chief physician of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She translated seventeen of her husband's works into English.<ref name="tdn">Template:Cite news Template:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore Alt URL</ref> In 2001 Thilda predeceased Yaşar, dying, aged 78, from pulmonary complications in an Istanbul hospital. She was buried in Zincirlikuyu Cemetery.<ref name="tdn" /> Thilda was also survived by her son Raşit Göğçel and a grandchild.<ref name="tdn" /><ref name="h1" />

Yaşar Kemal remarried on 1 August 2002. His second spouse was Ayşe Semiha Baban, a lecturer in public relations at Istanbul Bilgi University in Istanbul who had been educated at the American University of Beirut, Boğaziçi University and Harvard University.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Bibliography

Stories

  • Sarı Sıcak ("Yellow Heat") (1952).<ref name=larousse>Büyük Larousse, vol. 24, p. 12448, Milliyet, "Yaşar Kemal"</ref>

Novels

  • İnce Memed (Memed, My Hawk) (1955)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Teneke (The Drumming-Out) (1955)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Orta Direk (The Wind from the Plain) (1960)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Yer Demir Gök Bakır (Iron Earth, Copper Sky) (1963)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Ölmez Otu (The Undying Grass) (1968)
  • Ince Memed II (They Burn the Thistles) (1969)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Akçasazın Ağaları/Demirciler Çarşısı Cinayeti (The Agas of Akchasaz Trilogy/Murder in the Ironsmiths Market) (1974)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Akçasazın Ağaları/Yusufcuk Yusuf (The Agas of Akchasaz Trilogy/Yusuf, Little Yusuf) (1975)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Yılanı Öldürseler (To Crush the Serpent) (1976)<ref>Özkırımlı, Atilla; Baraz, Turhan (1993). Çağdaş Türk edebiyatı, Anadolu University, 105.</ref>
  • Al Gözüm Seyreyle Salih (The Saga of a Seagull) (1976)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Allahın Askerleri (God's Soldiers) (1978)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Kuşlar da Gitti (The Birds Have Also Gone: Long Stories) (1978)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Deniz Küstü (The Sea-Crossed Fisherman) (1978)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Hüyükteki Nar Ağacı (The Pomegranate on the Knoll) (1982)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Yağmurcuk Kuşu/Kimsecik I (Kimsecik I – Little Nobody I (1980);<ref name=larousse/> also published as "Salman the Solitary" (1997)<ref>France, P., The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 624.</ref>
  • Kale Kapısı/Kimsecik II (Kimsecik II – Little Nobody II)(1985)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Kanın Sesi/Kimsecik III (Kimsecik III – Little Nobody III) (1991)<ref>Çiftlikçi, Ramazan (1997). Yaşar Kemal: yazar, eser, üslup, Turkish Historical Society, p. 415: "KANIN SESİ: Dizinin son cildi KS, İM III ve IV'ün araya girmesi üzerine 1989'da tamamlanmış, aynı yıl Güneş gazetesinde tefrika edildikten sonra 1991 de kitap biçiminde yayımlanmıştır."</ref>
  • Fırat Suyu Kan Akıyor Baksana (Look, the Euphrates is Flowing with Blood) (1997)<ref name=cumh/>
  • Karıncanın Su İçtiği (Ant Drinking Water) (2002)<ref name=kar>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • Tanyeri Horozları (The Cocks of Dawn) (2002)<ref name=kar/>

Epic novels

  • Üç Anadolu Efsanesi (Three Anatolian Legends) (1967)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Ağrıdağı Efsanesi (The Legend of Mount Ararat) (1970) – the base of the opera Ağrı Dağı Efsanesi 1971<ref name=larousse/>
  • Binboğalar Efsanesi (The Legend of the Thousand Bulls) (1971)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Çakırcalı Efe* (The Life Stories of the Famous Bandit Çakircali) (1972)<ref name=cumh>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Reportages

  • Yanan Ormanlarda 50 Gün (Fifty Days in the Burning Forests) (1955)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Çukurova Yana Yana (While Çukurova Burns) (1955)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Peribacaları (The Fairy Chimneys) (1957)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Bu Diyar Baştan Başa (Collected reportages) (1971)<ref>Secular State and Religious Society: Two Forces in Play in Turkey, Palgrave Macmillan, 204.</ref>
  • Bir Bulut Kaynıyor (Collected reportages) (1974)<ref name=cumh/>

Experimental works

  • Ağıtlar (Ballads) (1943)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Taş Çatlasa (At Most) (1961)
  • Baldaki Tuz (The Salt in the Honey) (1959–74 newspaper articles)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Gökyüzü Mavi Kaldı (The Sky remained Blue) (collection of folk literature in collaboration with S. Eyüboğlu)<ref name=cumh/>
  • Ağacın Çürüğü (The Rotting Tree) (Articles and Speeches) (1980)<ref name=larousse/>
  • Yayımlanmamış 10 Ağıt (10 Unpublished Ballads) (1985)<ref name=cumh/>
  • Sarı Defterdekiler (Contents of the Yellow Notebook) (Collected Folkloric works) (1997)<ref name=cumh/>
  • Ustadır Arı (The Expert Bee) (1995)<ref name=cumh/>
  • Zulmün Artsın (Increase Your Oppression) (1995)<ref name=cumh/>

Children's books

  • Filler Sultanı ile Kırmızı Sakallı Topal Karınca (The Sultan of the Elephants and the Red-Bearded Lame Ant) (1977)<ref name=larousse/>

Awards and distinctions

Literature prizes

Decorations

Honorary doctorates

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References

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Template:Turkish Literature Template:Stig Dagerman Prize winners Template:Prix Méditerranée winners Template:Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels Template:Authority control

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