An annotated bibliography of left literature
Rolf Knight
1983
ORHAN KEMAL (Mehmet Raşit
Öğütçü)
Cemile
,
1952 (Cemile)
A novel set in a textile factory in a
small Turkish industrial town during the late 1930s and
1940s. Written from the perspective of
one of the factory workers and portraying his life
and that of his friends and family. One
of Orhan Kemal’s twenty-eight novels.
Grev,
1954 (Strike)
A novel about a strike by Ankara textile
workers who attempt to reduce their twelve hour
work day and change the master-servant
relations with employers. A struggle not only for
wages but also against the semi-feudal
attitudes carried over from village society, which
some of the workers themselves still
support. Based on Orhan’s experiences as a labour
union activist.
72 . Koğuş,
1958 (Cell Block 72)
Semi-fictionalized prison memoirs of
left wing intellectuals and labour leaders imprisoned
for their opposition to the Turkish
military regime of the mid 1950s.
,
1964 (Upon the Fruitful Earth)
A novel about the fates of migratory
ex-peasant workers on the large commercial farms and
as casual construction and factory
workers in the Turkish cities. Their third-class
citizenship
in both locales, without either
traditional or legislative security,and the exploitation
to which
they are subject.