Orhan Kemal

Orhan Kemal — Biography

Born Mehmet Raşit Öğütçü on 15 September 1914 in Ceyhan, Adana province, Orhan Kemal was the son of the opposition politician Abdülkadir Kemali Öğütçü; he reportedly spent part of his childhood in exile with his father in Syria and Lebanon, returning to Adana in 1932 at the age of eighteen to work as a weaver and factory clerk.

Near the end of his military service he was sentenced to five years in prison for violating Article 94 of the Turkish Penal Code, and it was during his time in various prisons that he met the poet Nazım Hikmet, who recognized his talent and encouraged him to write, steering him toward a literary career. He first gained wide recognition with his 1949 short-story collection Ekmek Kavgası and the autobiographical novel series published as Küçük Adamın Notları, and his literary output reached its peak in the 1960s. Writing in a socially realist vein, he portrayed the world of land and factory workers in Adana and the shantytown neighborhoods of Istanbul; his best-known novels, including Murtaza, Hanımın Çiftliği and 72. Koğuş, are considered classics of Turkish literature, and beyond more than twenty novels he wrote numerous stories, plays and screenplays, many of which were later adapted for film and television.

Orhan Kemal died on 2 June 1970 in Sofia. In his youth he had also played football for Adanaspor, earning him the nickname "Golcü Raşit" (Raşit the Goalscorer). Since 1972 an annual literary prize bearing his name, the Orhan Kemal Novel Award, has continued to be presented; in 2026 its 55th edition went to Ahmet Büke for his novel Kırmızı Buğday.