'Moving and remarkable' Andrew Finkel
Bursa prison, mid-winter 1940. Two prisoners meet, both writers, both serving long sentences for allegedly inciting Turkish soldiers to mutiny. One is Turkey's most famous poet and communist, Nazim Hikmet; the other a young, aspiring poet, Orhan Kemal, who now shares a cell with the man whose work he has long admired.
In this prison memoir, Orhan Kemal reminisces on the time he shared with the remarkable poet and describes how Nazim inspired ...