Kemal, Yashar (1923– )

Turkish novelist and journalist. He has been jailed repeatedly for his socialist convictions, shown in his progressive and politically conscious writings. His novels include Anatolian Tales (1967) and The Legend of the Thousand Bulls (1971). His work often portrays the essential decency of peasants and the difficulty of their struggle for existence.

Many of Kemal's novels are intensely political and characterized by elements of folklore and fairy tale. In his first, Ince Memed/Memed, My Hawk (1955), the hero is a kind of Turkish Robin Hood. Another peasant hero is featured in The Wind from the Plain (1960), Iron Earth, Copper Sky (1963), and The Undying Grass (1968).

Kemal held more than 40 odd jobs before becoming a journalist and Turkey's best-known novelist. In 1950 he was arrested for alleged communist propaganda, but later acquitted. The following year he moved to Istanbul from his home town of Adana and worked as a journalist. In the 1960s Kemal edited the Marxist weekly Ant. He was a member of the Turkish Workers' Party central committee, and was a political candidate in 1965. He was arrested and imprisoned again for his political views in 1966 and in 1971. In 1996 he received a 20-month suspended jail sentence for his article ‘Black Clouds over Turkey’, in which he condemned the oppression of the Kurds. The article was published in a book called Freedom of Expression in Turkey, subsequently banned. Kemal has published over 30 works, including the novels The Saga of a Seagull (1976), The Birds Have Also Gone (1978), and Salman the Solitary (1998), as well as several plays.