Melih Cevdet Anday

Melih Cevdet Anday
File:Melih Cevdet Anday.jpg Melih Cevdet Anday
Born	(1915-03-13)13 March 1915 Istanbul, Turkey
Died	Istanbul, Turkey

Melih Cevdet Anday (13 March 1915 – 28 November 2002), Turkish poet and writer who has been one of the forefront poets of the Garip movement together with Orhan Veli and Oktay Rifat.

His unique poetry stands outside the traditional poetic movements searching for new ways in poetry. Their new poetry resolved to make itself simple, colloquial, matter of fact—an artless art designed to serve the common people.

Biography

Melih Cevdet Anday was born in Istanbul in 1915. He graduated from Ankara Gazi High School and started working as a consultant for the Ministry of Education. He also worked as a journalist and written several articles for Akşam and Cumhuriyet newspapers. After 1954, he worked as a teacher for the Istanbul Council Conservatory.

Career

During a career that spanned six and a half decades, Melih Cevdet Anday published eleven collections of poems, eight plays, eight novels, fifteen collections of essays, a book of memoirs - and won all of Turkey's poetry prizes. He wrote several novels as well as translated several books into Turkish.

In 1971, UNESCO honoured him—along with such giants like Shakespeare, Dante, Tolstoy, Cervantes etc. His works have been translated into Russian, German, Hungarian, Romanian and English.

Bibliography

"On one of the banks of River Orontes Muwatalli stood among his soldiers And stared without stirring. On the opposite bank, the Pharaoh Ramses had mounted his chariot: He stared straight ahead. This is all we know about it. Even though history tells it at length This look is all that remains or can remain.

— Melih Cevdet Anday, "The Battle of Kadesh", translated by Talat Sait Halman (Talisman, 1991(Spring 6))."

Poetry

• "Garip" (with Orhan Veli and Oktay Rifat, 1941)
• "Rahatı Kaçan Ağaç" (1946)
• "Telgrafhane" (1952)
• "Yanyana" (1956)
• "Kolları bağlı Odysseus" (1963)
• "Göçebe Denizin Üstünde" (1970)
• "Teknenin Ölümü" (1975)
• "Sözcükler" (1978)
• "Ölümsüzlük Ardında Gılgamış" (1981)
• "Güneşte" (1989)
• "Yağmurun Altında" (1995)

Novels

• "Aylaklar" (1965)
• "Gizli Emir" (1970)
• "İsa'nın Güncesi" (1974)
• "Raziye" (1975)

Plays

• "İçerdekiler" (1965)
• "Mikado'nun Çöpleri" (1967)
• "Dört Oyun" (1972)
• "Ölümsüzler" (1984)

Essays

• "Doğu-Batı" (1961)
• "Konuşarak" (1964)
• "Gelişen Komedya" (1965)
• "Yeni Tanrılar" (1974)
• "Sosyalist Bir Dünya" (1975)
• "Dilimiz Üstüne Konuşmalar" (1975)
• "Maddecilik ve Ülkücülük" (1977)
• "Yasak" (1978)
• "Paris Yazıları" (1982)

Other

• "Sovyet Rusya, Azerbaycan, Özbekistan, Bulgaristan, Macaristan" (1965)

See also

• Garip Movement
• List of contemporary Turkish poets

References

• Who is who database - Biography of Melih Cevdet Anday (Turkish)
• Antoloji.com - Biography and bibliography of Melih Cevdet Anday (Turkish)

External links

• Melih Cevdet Anday - On his life and poetry