NazIm Hikmet
(1902–1963)

NazIm Hikmet is celebrated as contemporary Turkey's greatest poet, an honor that is well deserved and refers to his life efforts in addition to his artistic ones. After witnessing the fall of Turkey's Ottoman Empire at the close of the First World War, the young Hikmet became a Turkish nationalist. Eager to learn more about politics and how to implement change, he studied radical political theory in the Soviet Union.

Hikmet personalized his criticism of the current injustice in Turkey with the use of his pen. He published essays, plays, and poetry that portrayed his political beliefs and united his sense of self with a broader objective. Even his poetry was revolutionary as Hikmet wrote in free verse and contradicted archaic literary standards.

Hikmet's efforts to display his divergent political stance did not go unnoticed. Because of his radical vision of the future, the Turkish government forced him to spend most of his later life in prison. Liberated in 1950, Hikmet fled from Turkey the following year and lived in exile until his death. Nevertheless, his poetry and the influence he had on other poets are what remain today.

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