Nâzim Hikmet

May 6, 2013
Brown University literature professor Blasing (author of Lyric Poetry: The Pain and Pleasure of Words and translator of Hikmet's work) examines the life and work of Nâzim Hikmet (1902â1963), the indefatigable Turkish poet and ardently romantic communist who spent more than 20 years in prison and exile. Blasing faithfully recounts Hikmet's joyous study in Moscow in the early 1920s, his run-ins with the law in Turkey, his arrest in 1938, and his subsequent release and escape from his homeland, finally ending with his exile back in Moscow. Blasing effectively illustrates how the course of Hikmet's life reflected his two passions: poetry and politics. The biographer is most effective when interweaving examples of Hikmet's poetry with her knowledge of his work, making for fluid and engaging reading. However, Blasing clearly venerates Hikmet, who emerges as nearly flawless. The book often reads more like a tribute, and passages chronicling Hikmet's personal or professional missteps appear infrequently and awkwardly. Still, the biography, published simultaneously with the first English-language edition of Hikmet's final book, Life's Good, Brother, will help new readers discover the poet's work. 12 b&w photos.

Starred review from May 1, 2013
Turkey's great national poet, who is also, as the subtitle of literary scholar Blasing's intense biography asserts, of international stature, was fortunate in his art, unfortunate in practically everything else. His extraordinary personality crystallized when he was a student in early Soviet Moscow, and his 19-year-old self became the lifelong touchstone of his poetry and his politics. A romantic Communist, Hikmet (190263) constituted a party of one, whose commitment to truth, freedom, equality, and justice led to 12 years of imprisonment in and 18 of years virtual exile from Turkey. He wrote prolifically, both hackwork under pseudonyms to support his immediate family (blacklisted while he was interred and exiled) and a body of lyric, dramatic, and narrative verse that was the bedrock of the new literary language created by founder of the Turkish republic, Kemal Atatrk, when he decreed that Turkish adopt the Latin alphabet, banish Arabic and Persian borrowings, and reflect ordinary Turks' speech. This was a green light to Hikmet, who shared with poetic modernists worldwide the determination to be understood by the common person. Meanwhile, harassment, jail, and exile undermined his intimate relationships and ruined his health. In enlightening remarks on his work as much as the limning of his life, Blasing shows a great poet becoming a great hero. See also Life's Good, Brother reviewed on p.64.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)