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13 Facts About Orhan Kemal

1.

Orhan Kemal is the pen name of Turkish novelist Mehmet Resit Ogutcu.

2.

Orhan Kemal is known for his realist novels that describe the life of the poor in Turkey.

3.

Orhan Kemal was born in Ceyhan, Adana, on 15 September 1914.

4.

Kemal's father was obliged to flee Turkey for Syria, due to his party being suspected of involvement in a recent revolt, where Kemal remained with him for a year before returning to Adana in 1932.

5.

Orhan Kemal worked as a labourer, a weaver and as a clerk in a cotton mill.

6.

Orhan Kemal had been writing poems until he met Hikmet.

7.

Orhan Kemal was arrested again in 1966 for "forming a communist propagandist cell" but was released two months later after the charges could not be substantiated.

8.

Orhan Kemal died on 2 June 1970, in a hospital in Sofia, due to intracranial hemorrhage, in 1970, while visiting Bulgaria upon the invitation of the Bulgarian Writers Union.

9.

In 1942 he adopted the name Orhan Kemal when writing stories and poems in Yuruyus.

10.

Early works depicted characters form the immigrant quarters of Adana where Orhan Kemal described the social structure, worker-employer relationships and the daily struggles of ordinary people in industrialised Turkey.

11.

Orhan Kemal aimed to present an optimistic view through the heroes of his stories.

12.

Orhan Kemal never changed his simple expositional style and thus became one of the most skilful names of Turkish stories and novels.

13.

Orhan Kemal wrote a story named Hanimin Ciftligi which was a major success in Turkish history of soap operas.