Yasar KEMAL : L'écrivain turc étudié dans les écoles françaises

Yasar Kemal Gökceli was born in 1923 in Hemite, a 60-house hamlet in the province of Adana in southern Turkey. At the age of five Ya ar Kemal suffered a profound shock when his father was murdered while praying at the mosque and this left him with an impediment of speech which lasted up to his twelfth year. Surprisingly, it was only when singing that he did not stammer and this led him very early in life to improvising songs according to the Anatolian tradition of folk minstrels. It was this love of poetry that made him want to learn to read and write in order to record the poems he composed. But at that time there was no school in Yasar Kemal's village, as was the case then for 95% of Turkish villages. So at the age of nine the little boy walked to the neighbouring village every day and attended school there. Later his family moved to the small town of Kadirli where he completed his primary schooling. He was the first villager of Hemite ever to finish a primary school.

After leaving school he took up such a great variety of jobs that he himself does not remember them all. He worked as a labourer in the cotton and rice fields, taught in a school for a while, then switched to agriculture again and operated a threshing machine. He went to Istanbul where he was employed by the gas company, then returned to the little town of Kadirli, bought a typewriter and earned his living as a public letter-writer. He even managed to get into prison.

During this time he had read all the books he could lay his hands on and had made friends with intellectuals who contributed to his cultural formation. He wrote his first story in 1947.

In 1950 he came to Istanbul again and after a time of hardship and difficulties looking for work he managed to obtain a job as a reporter for Istanbul's most important daily newspaper, Cumhuriyet (Republic). His articles were written in a unheard-of style for Turkey and have since been published in book form, caused a sensation and he soon won the annual Journalists' Association Prize for the best reportage of the year.

His first book of short stories was published in 1952 under the title Yellow Heat. He then wrote Ince Memed (Memed My Hawk) which was published in 1955. This book was an event both in Turkey and abroad. In Turkey it won the newly set up Varlik Prize 1996 for the best novel of the year and was also chosen as the best-liked novel after a one-year opinion poll among readers all over Turkey. The book has broken the record of novel sales in Turkey. Abroad, The PEN Club International recommended the book to UNESCO which sponsored translation. Ince Memed has been published with success in more than thirty countries, and so have the other novels Yasar Kemal has written since.
http://www.unionsverlag.ch/authors/kemal/bio-engl.htm

Other Awards and Distinctions

Choix du Syndicat des Critiques Littéraires pour le meilleur roman etranger

(Eté/Automne 1977) pour Terre de Fer, Ciel de Cuivre (Yer Demir Gök Bakir).

Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger 1978 pour L'Herbe qui ne meurt pas (Ölmez Otu); Paris, Janvier 1979.

Prix Mondial Cino del Duca decerné pour contributions a l'humanisme moderne; Paris, Octobre 1982.

Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur de France; Paris, 1984.

The Sedat Simavi Foundation Award for Literature; Istanbul, Turkey, 1985.

Doctor Honoris Causa, Strasbourg University, France, 1991.

Doctor Honoris Causa, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey, 1992.

VII Premi Internacional Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, 1996.

Lillian Hellman/Dashiell Hammett Award for Courage in Response to Repression, Human Rights Watch, USA, 1996.

On Yasar Kemal

One of the world's great storytellers. He writes fearlessly, like a hero. John Berger

Yasar Kemal … far above the level of his contemporaries. Michael Austin, Time and Tide

U.S. readers may have been missing something. Time magazine

Ya ar Kemal should be read far and wide in the world. Erskine Caldwell

Kemal is above all a chronicler of his people. He has a gift … for compelling concern for the simple people he creates. The Times Literary Supplement

No one … will be in doubt about the quality of the Turkish author Ya ar Kemal. The Guardian

A powerful storyteller. Financial Times

He is a storyteller in the oldest tradition, that of Homer, spokesman for a people who had no other voice. Elia Kazan

Quelques livres:

Mèmed le mince de Yachar Kemal, Guzine Dino. Poche (5 juin 1979)

Le pilier de Yachar Kemal, Güzin Dino (Traduction). Poche (16 décembre 1977)

L'herbe qui ne meurt pas de Yachar Kemal, Munevver Andac (Traduction). Broché (mai 1978)

Retour: "Les Turcs connus en France"