15/01/2014
Nazım Hikmet Ran
One of the most important figures in the 20th century Turkish literature and one of the first Turkish poets to use more or less free verse. Hikmet became during his life time the best-known Turkish poet in the West, and his works were translated into several languages. However, in his home country Hikmet was condemned for his commitment to Marxism and he remained decades after his death a contreversial figure.
Hikmet spent some 17 years in prisons and called poetry "the bloodiest of the arts."
''I mean you must take living so seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you will plat olives -
and not so they'll be left for your children either,
but because even though you fear death you don't believe it,
because living, I mean, weights heavier."
(from 'On Living')
