Born on Thursday 26 May, 1904 in Istanbul in a big mansion.
He graduated from the Naval School on Heybeliada and then completed a degree in Philosophy at İstanbul University Literature Department. He was one of the first group of students sent by the Republic to be educated in Europe where he entered the Sorbonne in Paris in the Department of Philosophy.
He quit his studies at the Sorbonne and returned home.
His first poems were published in 1923 in Yeni Mecmua. In 1928, at the age of 24 he was suddenly elevated to the pinnacle of fame with the publication of his second book of poetry, “Kaldırımlar.”
He worked at various banks where he rose in rank to inspector. He taught at Ankara School of Languages – History – Geography, the National Conservatory of Arts, the İstanbul National Academy of Arts, and Robert College.
In 1934, his path led him to his spiritual teacher, his Excellency Abdulhakim Arvasi.
From 1943 – when in his own words, he leapt into the “social struggle” and the intellectual arena – until his death, he was accused, interrogated, tried, imprisoned many times by every successive government all the while living in a loneliness wedged in an intersection of “being appropriated without being understood” and “being cast out without being known.” Prior to the 1960 revolution, the sentences against him totalled 101 years.
He published the magazines Ağaç (1936) and Buyuk Doğu (1943-1978).
In various newspapers he penned columns and editorials famous for their “prescience.”
He produced more than 100 works in many genres, including “Çile” wherein he gathered all his poems, and, above all, “Bir Adam Yaratmak” – the stage work reflecting his great spiritual crisis in 1934, the first example of a major drama in Turkish Theater.
He passed from this life on 25 May, 1983. He was laid to rest in the hills of Eyüp, the anniversary of the day he was born, Thursday 26 May.
•Translated works:
Yunus Emre /Younous Emre (Editions Ministere de la Culture, Serie d’ouvrages de thatre Ankara 1991),
Bir Adam Yaratmak /Creating a Man (Colonel R.Masud Akhtar Shaikh, Islamabad, Pakistan 2005),
Para / The Money Games Colonel R.Masud Akhtar Shaikh, Islamabad, Pakistan 2005),
Çile / Qile (Adiloğlu Neşriyatı – Baki 2004)