Yaşar Kemal

Kemal Sadık Gökçeli
Born 1923 (age 88–89)
Gökçedam, Osmaniye, Turkey
Occupation Novelist
Period 1943 – present
Notable work(s)

Ağıtlar ("Ballads"; debut)

İnce Memed ("Memed, My Hawk"))
Teneke ("The Drumming-Out")
Ince Memed II ("They Burn the Thistles")
Notable award(s)

Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger
1979
Prix mondial Cino Del Duca
1982
Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur de France
1984
Peace Prize of the German Book Trade
1997

Grand Officier de la Légion d'Honneur de France
2011

Yaşar Kemal, (born Kemal Sadık Gökçeli[1] 1923) is a Turkish writer. He is one of Turkey's leading writers.[2][3] He has long been a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, on the strength of Memed, My Hawk.[4]

As an outspoken intellectual, he does not hesitate to speak on sensitive issues such as the plight of the ethnic Kurds in Southeastern Turkey.[5] His activism resulted in a twenty-month suspended jail sentence, on charges of advocating separatism.[6]

Contents

Life

Turkish
literature
By category
Epic tradition

Orhon
Dede Korkut · Köroğlu
Folk tradition

Folk literature
Folklore
Ottoman era

Poetry · Prose
Republican era

Poetry · Prose

Kemal, who is of Kurdish origin, was born in Hemite (now Gökçedam), a hamlet in the province of Osmaniye in southern Turkey. His parents were from Van, who came into Çukurova during the First World War. Kemal had a difficult childhood because he lost his right eye due to a knife accident, when his father was slaughtering a sheep on Eid al-Adha, and had to witness as his father was stabbed to death by his adoptive son Yusuf while praying in a mosque when he was five years old.[1] This traumatic experience left Kemal with a speech impediment, which lasted until he was twelve years old. At nine he started school in a neighboring village and continued his formal education in Kadirli, Osmaniye Province.[1]

Kemal was a locally noted bard before he started school, but was unappreciated by his widowed mother until he composed an elegy on the death of one of her eight brothers, all bandits.[7] However, he forgot it and became interested in writing as a means to record his work when he questioned an itinerant peddler, who was doing his accounts. Ultimately, his village paid his way to university in Istanbul.[7]

He worked for a while for rich farmers, guarding their river water against other farmers' unauthorized irrigation. However, instead he taught the poor farmers how to steal the water undetected, by taking it at night.[7]

Later he worked as a letter-writer, then as a journalist, and finally as a novelist. He said that the Turkish police took his first two novels.[7]

When Yaşar Kemal was visiting Akdamar Island in 1951, he saw the island's Holy Cross Church being destroyed. Using his contacts to the public, he helped stop destruction of the site. However, the church remained in a neglected state until 2005, when restoration by the Turkish government began.[8]

Marriages

In 1952, Yaşar Kemal married Thilda Serrero,[9] 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.[10] She translated 17 of her husband’s works into the English language.[11] Thilda died on January 17, 2001 (aged 78) from pulmonary complications at a hospital in Istanbul, and was laid to rest at Zincirlikuyu Cemetery.[11] Thilda is survived by her hushand, her son Raşit and a grandchild.[11]

Yaşar Kemal remarried on August 1, 2002 with Ayşe Semiha Baban, a lecturer for public relations at Bilgi University in Istanbul. She was educated at the American University of Beirut, Bosphorus University and Harvard University.[12]

Oeuvre

“ I don't write about issues, I don't write for an audience, I don't even write for myself. I just write. ”

—Interview with The Guardian.[13]

He published his first book Ağıtlar ("Ballads") in 1943, which was a compilation of folkloric themes. This book brings to light many long forgotten rhymes and ballads and Kemal had started to collect these ballads at the age of 16.[1] His first stories Bebek ("The Baby"), Dükkancı ("The Shopkeeper"), Memet ile Memet ("Memet and Memet") were published in 1950. He had written his first story Pis Hikaye ("The Dirty Story") in 1944, while he was serving in the military, in Kayseri. Then he published his book of short stories Sarı Sıcak ("Yellow Heat") in 1952. The initial point of his works was the toil of the people of the Çukurova plains and he based the themes of his writings on the lives and sufferings of these people. Yaşar Kemal has used the legends and stories of Anatolia extensively as the basis of his works.[1]

He received international acclaim with the publication of Memed, My Hawk (Turkish: İnce Memed) in 1955. In İnce Memed, Yaşar Kemal criticizes the fabric of the society through a legendary hero, a protagonist, who flees to the mountains as a result of the oppression of the Aghas. One of the most famous living writers in Turkey, Kemal is noted for his command of the language and lyrical description of bucolic Turkish life. He has been awarded 19 literary prizes so far and nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973.

His 1955 novel Teneke was adapted into a theatrical play, which was staged for almost one year in Gothenburg, Sweden, in the country where he lived for about two years in the late 1970s.[14] Italian composer Fabio Vacchi adapted the same novel with the original title into an opera of three acts, which premiered at the Teatro alla Scala in Milano, Italy in 2007.

Kemal lays claim to having recreated Turkish as a literary language, by bringing in the vernacular, following Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's sterilization of Turkish by removing Persian and Arabic elements.[7]

Bibliography

Stories

Novels

Epic Novels

Reportages

Experimental Works

Children's Books

Awards and distinctions

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Yaşar Kemal - YKY
  2. ^ Ertan, Nazlan (1997-03-06). "French pay tribute to Yasar Kemal". Turkish Daily News. Archived from the original on 2008-11-15. http://tdnarchives.blogspot.com/1997/03/french-pay-tribute-to-yasar-kemal.html. 
  3. ^ Perrier, Jean-Louis (1997-03-04). "Yachar Kemal, conteur et imprécateur" (in French). Le Monde. http://www.lemonde.fr/cgi-bin/ACHATS/acheter.cgi?offre=ARCHIVES&type_item=ART_ARCH_30J&objet_id=251930. Retrieved 2008-08-17. 
  4. ^ "Ölene kadar Nobel adayı olacağım" (in Turkish). Hurriyet. 2007-07-02. http://hurarsiv.hurriyet.com.tr/goster/haber.aspx?id=5621617&tarih=2007-07-02. Retrieved 2008-04-04. 
  5. ^ Norman, Roger (1997-06-05). "Yasar Kemal and the last of the nomads". Turkish Daily News (Hürriyet). http://arama.hurriyet.com.tr/arsivnews.aspx?id=-503844. Retrieved 2008-12-15. "...for Yasar Kemal has become perhaps the best known champion of human rights in Turkey, the godfather of freedom of conscience. He is no stranger to prison and currently has a suspended prison sentence hanging over him." 
  6. ^ "Yasar Kemal asks Germans not to mistreat Turks". Turkish Daily News. Reuters. 1997-10-19. Archived from the original on 2008-11-14. http://tdnarchives.blogspot.com/1997/10/yasar-kemal-asks-germans-not-to.html. 
  7. ^ a b c d e Bosquet, Alain (1999). Yaşar Kemal on his life and art. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815605515. 
  8. ^ Asbarez, 1st October 2010: The Mass at Akhtamar, and What’s Next
  9. ^ Taylor & Francis Group (2004). "KEMAL, Yashar". In Elizabeth Sleeman. International Who's Who of Authors and Writers. Routledge. p. 290. ISBN 1857431790. http://books.google.com/books?id=phhhHT64kIMC&pg=PA290&lpg=PA290&dq=thilda+serrero+1952&source=web&ots=e_pvFOMtxq&sig=Hg2BiOwm9MbwM_tPPobX4w3Jv7s&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result. 
  10. ^ Uzun, Mehmed (2001-01-22). "Thilda Kemal: The Graceful Voice of an Eternal Ballad". Turkish Daily News. Archived from the original on 2008-07-11. http://www.tranchida.it/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=491. 
  11. ^ a b c "Thilda Kemal, wife and translator of novelist Yasar Kemal, dies". Turkish Daily News. 2001-01-19. Archived from the original on 2008-11-14. http://tdnarchives.blogspot.com/2001/01/thilda-kemal-wife-and-translator-of.html. 
  12. ^ Kayar, Ayda (2002-08-11). "Yaşar Kemal evlendi" (in Turkish). Hürriyet. http://webarsiv.hurriyet.com.tr/2002/08/11/164909.asp. Retrieved 2008-07-11. 
  13. ^ Birch, Nicholas (2008-11-28). "Yasar Kemal's disappearing world of stories". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/28/yasar-kemal. Retrieved 2009-01-03. 
  14. ^ Göktaş, Lütfullah (2007-06-30). "Yaşar Kemal’in Teneke’si İtalyanca opera" (in Turkish). NTV-MSNBC. http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/412307.asp. Retrieved 2008-07-11. 
  15. ^ Köy Seyirlik Oyunları, Seyirlik Uygulamalarıyla 51 Yıllık Bir Amatör Topluluk: Ankara Deneme Sahnesi ve Uygulamalarından İki Örnek: Bozkır Dirliği Ve Gerçek Kavga Nurhan Tekerek
  16. ^ "Cumhurbaşkanlığı Kültür ve Sanat Büyük Ödülleri dağıtıldı" (in Turkish). Milliyet. Anka news agency. 2008-12-04. http://www.milliyet.com.tr/Siyaset/SonDakika.aspx?aType=SonDakika&Kategori=siyaset&KategoriID=&ArticleID=1024766&Date=04.12.2008&b=Yasar%20Kemal%20torende%20yurumekte%20zorlandi. Retrieved 2008-12-04. 
  17. ^ "Yaşar Kemal: Umutsuzluk umudu yaratır" (in Turkish). ntvmsnbc.com. Anadolu Ajansı. October 7, 2009. http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/id/25007751/. Retrieved October 8, 2009. 
  18. ^ "Yaşar Kemal'e büyük "nişan"" (in Turkish). CNN Türk. 2011-12-18. http://www.cnnturk.com/2011/kultur.sanat/kitap/12/18/yasar.kemale.buyuk.nisan/640954.0/index.html. Retrieved 2011-12-18.