In the beginning
Turkish literature was born in the 13th century from the meeting of popular sung poetry, anchored in everyday life, and mystical poetry (mevlenist and dervish), turned towards the sublimation of language and ecstasy. Heavily influenced by Arabic and Persian literature during the Ottoman period, Turkish literature had its heyday with the period of Dîvan poetry (15th and 16th centuries), which was elitist and symbolic. In the meantime, the popular poetry ambulant spreads and evolves. It is in the XIXth century, during the political period of the reforms, that a revival takes place which will make enter Turkish literature in its "modern" era. An exceptional generation of writers appeared, closer to the people than their glorious predecessors, infatuated with national pride, but open to the West. Who are its leaders? Ibrahim Sinasi (1826-1871), the translator of La Fontaine, Racine and Lamartine, Ahmet Mithat (1844-1912) and Şemsettin Sami (1826-1871). Not to mention Namık Kemal (1840-1888) who particularly excelled in all literary genres. Novel, poetry, essay, theater, nothing escapes him. He expresses the fatherland and freedom! From then on, Turkish literature will develop in the alliance of national traditions - such as folk tales or narrative poetry - and Western ideas and genres.
André Chénier, between Paris and Istanbul
This Levantine author, born in Constantinople in 1762 of a Roman mother (Greek of Istanbul) and a French father, was inspired from his youth by the Hellenic culture and the French philosophy. A poet of the liberal revolution, he was indignant against the excesses of the French Revolution, which led him straight to the guillotine in 1794. His posthumous work was a hit with the romantic youth who saw in him the alliance of sincere inspiration and the cult of art. Victor Hugo will greet his work by speaking about "a new poetry which has just been born". His birthplace, in Galata, is still standing, but after being transformed into a consulate by the Count of Saint-Priest in 1770, it is now used as a neon workshop. This house is known by the Turkish name Sen Piyer Hanı (St. Peter's House).
The rise of literature in the 20th century
With the republic comes the period of social and humanistic realism. Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu (1889-1974), Nuri Güntekin (1889-1956), and Sabahattin Ali (1907-1948) spearheaded it, but it was above all Nazım Hikmet (1902-1963) who marked the period with his pen. Writer, poet, born in 1902 in Salonika, died in 1963 in Moscow, Hikmet grew up in Istanbul; he began writing at the age of 17. Attracted by communism, he left for Russia in 1922, where he met Vladimir Maïakovski, a Russian poet who had been flayed alive, who inspired the cubo-futurist movement and who joined the Bolshevik party very early on. Hikmet paid dearly for his own political commitment: he was persecuted as soon as he returned to Turkey in 1928, and spent seventeen years in prison. When he was released, he decided to flee the country of which he had lost his nationality to go into permanent exile in Russia (which had meanwhile become the Soviet Union). In 1950, Nazım Hikmet shared with Pablo Neruda and Paul Robeson the World Peace Prize. His work, with its simple and strong style, is a call to courage, resistance and dignity. Frequently censored, Nazım Hikmet remains the most popular poet of modern Turkey. He was a great friend of Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Aragon, Pablo Neruda and Miguel Angel Asturias. In recent years, there have been campaigns of petitions demanding the rehabilitation of the great Turkish poet and his reinstatement in the civil registers, from which he was removed in 1951. He wrote collections of poetry such as Human Landscapes (1946-1947) and It's a hard job to be in exile (1957), plays such as Did Ivan Ivanovich exist? as well as novels and stories(The Loving Cloud, 1962).
In the 1960s and 1970s, the social and political novel became established. It is embodied, among others, by Yaşar Kemal (1923-2015) in Mèmed le Mince (1955), Terre de fer, Ciel de cuivre (1963), Tu écraseras le serpent (1976). This was followed by the novel of humor for about twenty years, with authors who reached a wide audience, such as the brilliant Aziz Nesin (1915-1995), one of the most translated in France. In 1944, he became a journalist for Marko Macha, a political-humoristic magazine that was banned several times. He was imprisoned several times and continued to write satirical articles. In 1953 his first book Dog Tails was published. He wrote, among others, Memories of an exile (1957) or Nesin to the police (1967) which are autobiographical works. It must be said, Aziz Nesin is a prolific author. More than two thousand stories are grouped in about thirty collections such as Un fou sur le toit (1956), Bravo (1959), Comment se renvers un fauteuil (1961), Le Socialisme arrive, garez-vous (1965) ... Also develops the novel of the imagination, introspection and nostalgia with Orthan Pamuk (born in 1952), considered one of the most talented contemporary Turkish novelists. His novel Noir, published in 1995, earned him international success. A few years later, in 2001, he received the Best Foreign Book Award in France for his novel My Name is Red. Throughout the years, he has received other awards such as the Independent Foreign Award and the Impac Prize. In 2005, he received the Médicis foreign prize for Neige. And to conclude, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. His work can be read at Gallimard in the collection "Du monde entier".
The new generation
The figures speak for themselves: between 1979 and 1992, only eight works were translated into French. Then came a slight boom: six titles translated in 1995, a Nobel Prize in 2006, and 15 titles translated in 2009. Among them, Yachar Kémal (1923-2015) and Nedim Gürsel, authors published by Gallimard. After having had several manual jobs, Yachar Kémal became a journalist at Cumhuriyet. In 1955, he published his first novel, Mèmed le Mince (the first novel of the Mèmed cycle, which includes four novels written between 1955 and 1984: Mèmed le Mince, Mèmed le Faucon, Le Retour de Mèmed le Mince and Le Dernier combat de Mèmed le Mince), which has been translated into more than forty languages.
In 1978, he was awarded the prize for the Best Foreign Book for his novel L'Herbe qui ne meurt pas. In 1982, he received the Cino-Del-Duca World Prize for the whole of his work, and the Legion of Honor in 1984! Nedim Gürsel (born 1951) writes in Turkish and French. He studied in France where he obtained a doctorate in comparative literature. He is director of research at the CNRS. He has written some forty novels, short stories, travelogues and critical essays. He has also been awarded several prizes such as the Turkish Academy Prize in 1976 for A Long Summer in Istanbuland the Ipekçi Prize in 1986 for The First Woman. In 2004, he became a knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. Other works of him are to be discovered: The Daughters of Allah (2008), The Red Angel (2011) or The Son of the Captain (2016).
Note also today the remarkable work of Elif Shafak, born in 1971. This author of novels has tackled xenophobia, especially in her second novel The Bastard of Istanbul, a bestseller in Turkey in 2006. She was awarded the Order of Arts and Letters, but was still sued by the government for "humiliation of Turkish identity". The city of Istanbul is one of her main sources of inspiration.
We can also mention the pen of Ece Temelkuran. Born in 1973, this author takes a stand for human rights and against discrimination and violence against women. She is also interested in the Armenian question. In 2008, she wrote Deep Montain about it. In 2019, she delivered a superb novel: What good is the revolution if I can not dance.
For her part, Sema Kaygusuz wrote her first novel, The Fall of Prayers, in 2006. The book was awarded the Ecrimed-Cultura translation prize and the France-Turkey prize.
Among this new generation of authors, it is impossible not to mention Hakan Günday (born in 1976). This underground writer made a name for himself with his first novel, Kinyas and Kayra (2000), with a background of violence and self-destruction. His latest work, Encore, received the Médicis foreign prize in 2015.
French novels in Turkey
We must be honest: France knows very little about Turkish literature. On the other hand, 600 French titles are sold each year to Turkish publishers, French being the second language translated in Turkey. Classical works and books on philosophy are especially popular (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Victor Hugo, Jean-Jacques Rousseau), but some contemporary French authors are also popular, such as Marc Levy. Others may also be crowded out of Turkish publishing. This is the case, for example, of those who openly criticize Islam. The publishers, out of breath, have asked for help and have found it, for example, in the private bank Yapi Kredi, which has invested in a bookshop in the center of Istanbul. Others followed in the rest of the country, offering a choice of Turkish and foreign literature. So, literature is trying to keep its head high in order to keep its talents alive.
