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ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency
A novel by Orhan Kemal, one of the masters of Turkish
literature, has been translated into Chinese and published
in China. “Bereketli Topraklar Üzerinde” (On Fertile Lands)
has been translated into Chinese by Yongmin Xia.
Although the novel was published only recently, it has
received good reactions from Chinese readers, Kemal’s son,
Işık Öğütçü, told Anatolia News Agency.
Of the nine books published so far as part of the TEDA
project, which aims to promote Turkish literature abroad,
four are Kemal’s. “He is the flagship of Turkish literature,
he makes the way. Other Turkish books will also be read in
the countries where Orhan Kemal’s books are read. These
books are our cultural ambassadors,” Öğütçü said.
“On Fertile Lands” is one of his father’s best-known and
most-read novels, Öğütçü said. “Kemal tells the stories of
ordinary people, and people like these live all around the
world. That is why books featuring ordinary people will
receive interest everywhere. Their happiness, unhappiness,
daily problems, economic problems, efforts to have a better
life, and dreams… They will be loved in China, because they
speak to a wide mass of people.”
Kemal’s novels adapted for the screen
Kemal was one of the first authors to write about the
working class, the alienation of immigrants in big cities,
mass urbanization and the changing social structure of Turkeyafter
World War II, according to Hürriyet Daily News’s Emrah
Güler. He shed a realist light on and took a brutal look at
poor people living with dignity. Kemal’s stories, novels and
plays also lent a voice to working-class women for perhaps
the first time in modern Turkish literature.
His trilogy of novels “Vukuat Var,” “Hanımın Çiftliği”
(Lady’s Farm) and “Kaçak” (Fugitive), written between 1958
and 1970, were among the first pieces of Turkish literature
to capture the attention of television producers in the
recent Turkish TV series boom. In 2009, the trilogy was
adapted into a popular series that took the
audience-friendly title of the second book, “Lady’s Farm.”
Starring acclaimed actors Özgü Namal and Mehmet Aslantuğ,
the series ran for two seasons, changing the events of the
original books somewhat as it went along.
Now, two more of Kemal’s novels, “Kötü Yol” (Going Astray)
and “Evlerden Biri” (One of the Houses), have also been
turned into TV series. Both are set in the 1960s, and both
are similar in subject and tone, dealing mainly with
problems stemming from migration to Istanbul.
September/08/2012
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