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Aziz Nesin (b. Mehmet Nusret Nesin,¶ December 20, 1915 – July 6, 1995) was a Turkish writer and humorist who authored more than 100 books.
Generally going by the name "Aziz Nesin", this was originally his father's name, used by Nesin as the pseudonym under which he started publishing. He wrote under more than fifty noms de plume, such as the pseudonym "Vedia Nesin", his first wife's name, which he used for love poems published in the magazine Yedigün.
Nesin was of Crimean Tatar origin. He was born in 1915 on Heybeliada, one of the Princes' Islands of Istanbul, in the days of the Ottoman Empire. Afte
Aziz Nesin (b. Mehmet Nusret Nesin,¶ December 20, 1915 – July 6, 1995) was a Turkish writer and humorist who authored more than 100 books.
Generally going by the name "Aziz Nesin", this was originally his father's name, used by Nesin as the pseudonym under which he started publishing. He wrote under more than fifty noms de plume, such as the pseudonym "Vedia Nesin", his first wife's name, which he used for love poems published in the magazine Yedigün.
Nesin was of Crimean Tatar origin. He was born in 1915 on Heybeliada, one of the Princes' Islands of Istanbul, in the days of the Ottoman Empire. After serving as a career officer for several years, he became the editor of a series of satirical periodicals with a socialist slant. He was jailed several times and placed under surveillance by the National Security Service (MAH in Turkish) for his political views.
Nesin provided a strong indictment of the oppression and brutalization of the common man. He satirized bureaucracy and exposed economic inequities in stories that effectively combine local color and universal truths. Aziz Nesin has been presented with numerous awards in Turkey, Italy, Bulgaria and the former Soviet Union. His works have been translated into over thirty languages. During latter parts of his life he was said to be the only Turkish author who made a living only out of his earnings from his books.
On 6 June 1956, he married a coworker from the Akbaba magazine, Meral Çelen.
In 1972, he founded the Nesin Foundation. The purpose of the Nesin Foundation is to take, each year, four poor and destitute children into the Foundation's home and provide every necessity - shelter, education and training, starting from elementary school - until they complete high school, a trade school, or until they acquire a vocation. Aziz Nesin donated to the Nesin Foundation his copyrights in their entirety for all his works in Turkey or other countries, including all of his published books, all plays to be staged, all copyrights for films, and all his works performed or used in radio or television.
Aziz Nesin was a political activist. After the 1980 military coup led by Kenan Evren, the intelligentsia was oppressed. Aziz Nesin led a number of intellectuals to take a stand against the military government, by issuing the Petition of Intellectuals (Turkish: Aydınlar Dilekçesi).
He championed free speech, especially the right to criticize Islam without compromise. In early 1990s he began a translation of Salman Rushdie's controversial novel, The Satanic Verses. This made him a target for radical Islamic organizations, who were gaining popularity throughout Turkey. On July 2, 1993 while attending a mostly Alevi cultural festival in the central Anatolian city of Sivas, a mob organized by radical Islamists gathered around the Madimak Hotel, where the festival attendants were accommodated, calling for Sharia and death to infidels.
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