Kemal Tahir
| Kemal Tahir | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 13, 1910 Istanbul, Ottoman Empire |
| Died | April 21, 1973 (aged 63) |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Alma mater | Galatasaray High School |
Kemal Tahir (March 13, 1910 - April 21, 1973) was a prominent Turkish novelist and intellectual. Tahir spent 13 years of his life imprisoned due to political reasons and wrote some of his most important novels during this time.
His most important novels include Esir Şehrin İnsanları (1956), Devlet Ana (1967) and Yorgun Savaşçı (1965), all in which Tahir uses historical background to support his characters and settings. Some of his novels were adapted into popular films. Tahir also wrote pulp fiction under pseudonyms for financial reasons.
Kemal Tahir was born on March 13, 1910. His father Tahir Bey was a navy captain and an adviser to Sultan Abdulhamit II. After graduating from Hasan Paşa Rüşdiyesi (secondary school), Kemal Tahir enrolled to Galatasaray High School. But after his mother's death, he dropped out high school at 10th grade and began working as a lawyer's clerk, and later as a journalist. He worked as a journalist, editor and a translator at Vakit, Haber and Son Posta newspapers in İstanbul. He worked as a page editor at Karikatür and Yeni Gün newspapers. He became lead writer for the newspaper Karagöz and later worked as the editor-in-chief at Tan. He married Fatma İrfan in 1937.
In 1938, Kemal Tahir and Nazım Hikmet was accused of "spreading sedition" amongst the armed forces by the Navy Command Court Martial, was subsequently found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He served time in Çankırı, Malatya, Çorum, Nevşehir and Kırşehir prisons. Twelve years later, he was released in the general amnesty of 1950.
Following his release, Kemal Tahir returned to Istanbul and started working as Istanbul correspondent of The Izmir Commerce newspaper. He married his second wife Semiha Sıdıka. He wrote romance and adventure novels and film scripts, using aliases such as "Körduman", "Bedri Eser", "Samim Aşkın", "f. m. ikinci", "Nurettin Demir", or "Ali Gıcırlı". He also undertook translations from French. He was taken into custody again following the 6–7 September incidents in 1955 and served six months in the Harbiye military prison. Upon his release he ran Düşün Publishing, which he co-founded with the writer Aziz Nesin.
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