Aziz Nesin
Aziz Nesin | |
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Born | Mehmet Nusret Nesin 20 December 1915 Heybeliada, Ottoman Empire |
Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Çeşme, Turkey |
Nationality | Turkish |
Ethnicity | Crimean Tatar |
Occupation | Writer and humorist |
Spouse(s) | Vedia Nesin (1939–1948) Meral Çelen (1956–1967) |
Children | Oya (1940) Ateş (1942) Ali (1956) Ahmet (1957) |
Parent(s) | Abdulaziz "Aziz" (Topalosmanoğlu family) & Hanife "İkbal" |
Aziz Nesin (pronounced [ˈaziz ˈne.sin ]; (born Mehmet Nusret Nesin,¶ December 20, 1915 – July 6, 1995) was a Turkish writer and humorist who authored more than 100 books.
Contents
- 1 Pseudonyms
- 2 Biography
- 3 English language bibliography
- 3.1 Istanbul Boy
- 3.2 Turkish Stories from Four Decades
- 3.3 Dog Tails
- 3.4 Memoirs Of An Exile
- 3.5 Hayri the Barber Surnâmé
- 3.6 Out of the Way! Socialism's Coming!
- 3.7 The Dance of the Eagle and the Fish
- 3.8 Socialism Is Coming: Stand Aside
- 3.9 The Tales of Nasrettin Hoca
- 3.10 Laugh or Lament
- 3.11 Online translations
- 4 Notes
- 5 References
- 6 Sources
- 7 External links
Pseudonyms
Generally going by the name "Aziz Nesin", this was originally his father's name, used by Nesin as the pseudonym under which he started publishing. He wrote under more than fifty noms de plume, such as the pseudonym "Vedia Nesin", his first wife's name, which he used for love poems published in the magazine Yedigün.
Biography
Nesin was of Crimean Tatar origin.[1][2] He was born in 1915 on Heybeliada, one of the Princes' Islands of Istanbul, in the days of the Ottoman Empire. After serving as a career officer for several years, he became the editor of a series of satirical periodicals with a socialist slant. He was jailed several times and placed under surveillance by the National Security Service (MAH in Turkish) for his political views.[3][4]
Nesin supposedly provided a strong indictment of the oppression and brutalization of the common man. He satirized bureaucracy and "exposed economic inequities in stories that effectively combine local color and universal truths". Aziz Nesin has been presented with numerous awards in Turkey, Italy, Bulgaria and the former Soviet Union. His works have been translated into over thirty languages. During latter parts of his life he was said to be the only Turkish author who made a living only out of his earnings from his books.
On 6 June 1956, he married a coworker from the Akbaba magazine, Meral Çelen.
In 1972, he founded the Nesin Foundation. The purpose of the Nesin Foundation is to take, each year, four poor and destitute children into the Foundation's home and provide every necessity - shelter, education and training, starting from elementary school - until they complete high school, a trade school, or until they acquire a vocation. Aziz Nesin donated to the Nesin Foundation his copyrights in their entirety for all his works in Turkey or other countries, including all of his published books, all plays to be staged, all copyrights for films, and all his works performed or used in radio or television.
Aziz Nesin was a political activist. After the 1980 military coup led by Kenan Evren, the intelligentsia was oppressed. Aziz Nesin led a number of intellectuals to rebel against the military government, by issuing the Petition of Intellectuals (Turkish: Aydınlar Dilekçesi). He was the President of the Türkiye Yazarlar Sendikası (Turkish Writers' Union).
He was also a critic on Islam. In early 1990s he began a translation of Salman Rushdie's controversial novel, The Satanic Verses. This provoked outrage from Islamic organizations, who were gaining popularity throughout Turkey, who then tried to hunt him down. On July 2, 1993 while attending a mostly Alevi cultural festival in the central Anatolian city of Sivas, a mob organized by Islamists gathered around the Madimak Hotel, where the festival attendants were accommodated.[5] After hours of siege, the intruders set the hotel on fire. After flames engulfed several lower floors of the hotel, firetrucks managed to get close, and Aziz Nesin and many guests of the hotel escaped. However, 37 people were killed. This event, also known as the Sivas massacre, was perceived as censorship, and human rights in Turkey were allegedly disrupted at that time. It also deepened the rift between fundamentalist Muslims and those that they regard as infidels.
He devoted his last years to combating religious fundamentalism. Aziz Nesin died on July 6, 1995 due to a heart attack, after a book signing event in Çeşme, İzmir. After his death, his body was buried at an unknown location in land belonging to the Nesin Foundation, without any ceremony, as requested in his will.
English language bibliography
Several of Nesin's works have been published in English language translation.
Istanbul Boy
Istanbul Boy: The Autobiography of Aziz Nesin (Turkish title: Böyle Gelmiş Böyle Gitmez) is a multi-volume autobiography by Turkish writer Aziz Nesin published by University of Texas Press and Southmoor Studios, in English language translation by Joseph S. Jacobson.[6][7]
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Turkish Stories from Four Decades
Turkish Stories from Four Decades is a 1991 short story collection by Turkish writer Aziz Nesin published by Three Continents Press, in English language translation by Louis Mitler.
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Dog Tails
Dog Tails is a short story collection by Turkish writer Aziz Nesin republished in 2000 by Southmoor Studios, in English language translation by Joseph S. Jacobson.
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Memoirs Of An Exile
Memoirs Of An Exile (Turkish title: Bir Sürgünün Hatıraları) is an autobiographical memoir by Turkish writer Aziz Nesin about his exile to Bursa, republished in 2001 by Southmoor Studios, in English language translation by Joseph S. Jacobson.
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Hayri the Barber Surnâmé
Hayri the Barber Surnâmé (Turkish title: Surnâme) is a novel by Turkish writer Aziz Nesin republished in 2001 by Southmoor Studios, in English language translation by Joseph S. Jacobson.
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Out of the Way! Socialism's Coming!
Out of the Way! Socialism's Coming! (Turkish title: Sosyalizm Geliyor Savulun!) is a 2001 selection of three stories from a short story collection by Turkish writer Aziz Nesin, published by Milet Books, in a dual of the original Turkish and an English language translation by Damian Croft, as part of its series of Turkish-English Short Story Collections.
The publisher states that, “In these hilarious and entertaining stories, the legendary Aziz Nesin turns his uniquely incisive, satirical wit on shifting ideologies, bureaucracy and the question of who’s really (in)sane: the ones locked up or the ones outside.”[8]
A review in Write Away states that, “These are thought provoking parables of our time,” that, “take the mickey out of bureaucracy and political ideology and hypocrisy,” and “should leave readers laughing and thinking.”[8]
The volume consists of the stories;
- Out of the Way! Socialism's Coming!
- The Inspector's Coming
- The Lunatics Break Loose
For an English-only edition of the full collection, see below under Socialism Is Coming: Stand Aside.
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The Dance of the Eagle and the Fish
The Dance of the Eagle and the Fish is a children's book adapted by English writer Alison Boyle from the short story of the same name by Turkish writer Aziz Nesin and published in 2001 by Milet Books, in English language translation by Ruth Christie.
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Socialism Is Coming: Stand Aside
Socialism Is Coming: Stand Aside (Turkish title: Sosyalizm Geliyor Savulun!) is a short story collection by Turkish writer Aziz Nesin republished in 2002 by Southmoor Studios, in English language translation by Joseph S. Jacobson.
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The Tales of Nasrettin Hoca
The Tales of Nasrettin Hoca (Turkish title: Nasrettin Hoca Hikayeleri) is a short story collection by Turkish writer Aziz Nesin based on the folk tales of Nasrettin Hoca republished in 2002 by Dost Yayınları, in English language translation by Talât Sait Halman.
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Laugh or Lament
Laugh or Lament: Selected Short Stories is a 2002 short story collection by Turkish writer Aziz Nesin published by Turkish Ministry of Culture, in English language translation by Masud Akhtar Shaikh, with an introduction by the translator.
The volume consists of the stories;
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Online translations
- Istanbul Boy: The Autobiography of Aziz Nesin, Part I at University of Texas.
- A Patriotic Duty at Boğaziçi University.
Notes
^¶ According to Nesin's autobiography Memoirs of an Exile: "They named me Nusret. In Turkish, this Arabic word means 'God's Help.' It was a name entirely fitting to us because my family, destitute of any other hope, placed all their hope in God."[9]
References
- ↑ International Committee for Crimea, http://www.iccrimea.org/scholarly/aydin.html#_ftn6
- ↑ Allworth, Edward. The Tatars of Crimea: return to the homeland : studies and documents. Pg 328. ISBN 978-0-8223-1994-8.
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- ↑ Memoirs Of An Exile, Lightmillennium.org
Sources
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- Nesin, Aziz. Istanbul Boy – The autobiography of Aziz Nesin, translated by Joseph S. Jacobson
- Turkishculture.org – Aziz Nesin (1916-1995)[unreliable source?]
- Biyografi.info – Biography of Aziz Nesin (Turkish)[unreliable source?]
- Biyografi.net – Biography of Aziz Nesin (Turkish)[unreliable source?]
- Allword, Edward. The Tatars of Crimea: Return to the Homeland : Studies and Documents. North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8223-1994-2.
External links
- Nesin Foundation (Turkish)
- About Aziz Nesin at the Wayback Machine (archived October 26, 2009) & The Nesin Foundation at the Wayback Machine (archived October 26, 2009) (English)
- Poems of Aziz Nesin Poetry of Aziz Nesin, translated into English
- Online edition of Istanbul Boy, Part I
- Aziz Nesin: A Black-comedy Defiant Turkish Satirist
- Aziz Nesin at the Internet Movie Database
- Pages using infobox person with unknown parameters
- Infobox person using ethnicity
- Articles with hCards
- Articles containing Turkish-language text
- Articles lacking reliable references from October 2008
- Articles with Turkish-language external links
- 1915 births
- 1995 deaths
- Atheism activists
- People from Istanbul Province
- Turkish people of Crimean Tatar descent
- Kuleli Military High School alumni
- Turkish Military Academy alumni
- Turkish Army officers
- Turkish atheists
- Turkish writers
- Turkish children's writers
- Turkish novelists
- Turkish poets
- Turkish former Muslims
- Turkish prisoners and detainees
- Turkish humorists
- Prisoners and detainees of Turkey
- 20th-century novelists
- 20th-century poets
- Akbaba people
- Turkish Marxists