Unpublished Nazim Hikmet Poem Found

The bimonthly Sözcükler ("Words") literary magazine has presented the Turkish public with a poem by Nazim Hikmet which was previously unknown. Hikmet wrote the poem while in jail in Istanbul in 1938 and sent it to his wife Piraye without making a copy. The poem was then found in the "Piraye collection".

The magazine published the poem in its original form. 

The poem, entitled "Four Pidgeons", speaks about four pidgeons washing in a fountain in the prison and compares the freedom of the pidgeons, who can fly away at any time, with "four people on sorrowful soil", who do not have wings: "The wings of people are in their hearts."

In the same collection, three half-finished novels by Nazim Hikmet were found.

Who was Nazim Hikmet?

Nazim Hikmet, born in 1901 in what is today Greek Thessaloniki, was educated in Istanbul. He was a "romantic revolutionary", whose time in Moscow in the early 1920s affected him deeply.

Hikmet wrote poems, plays and film scripts.

He is one fo the best-known Turkish poets, but he spent much of his life in prison or exile. When in prision in the 1940s, a campaign for his release was organised by a committee including Pablo Picasso and Jean Paul Sartre.

Hikmet was awarded the International Peace Prize by the World Peace Council in 1951.

Hikmet died in exile in Moscow in 1963. He had lost Turkish citizenship, and there are still campaigns to restore his citizenship and bring his body back to Turkey. (TK/AG)

*This article has used information from Wikipedia.