Aziz Nesin (pronounced [ˈaziz ˈne.sin]; born Mehmet Nusret,¶ 20 December 1915 – 6 July 1995) was a Turkish writer, humorist and the author of more than 100 books. Born in a time when Turks did not have official surnames, he had to adopt one after the Surname Law of 1934 was passed. Although his family carried the nickname "Topalosmanoğlu", after an ancestor named "Topal Osman", he chose the surname "Nesin". In Turkish, Nesin? means, What are you?.
Generally going by the name "Aziz Nesin", the name "Aziz" was originally his father's nickname, used by Nesin for 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.
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 throughout multiple administrations in Turkey.
In 1945, Nesin left the army. Afterwards, in 1946 Nesin launched a weekly satirical magazine, Marko Paşa, with two leading figures, namely Sabahattin Ali and Rıfat Ilgaz. He wrote a book called Azizname, which led to him being put on trial and jailed for four months although he was ultimately acquitted. While writing for his magazine, he wrote pieces that prompted Queen Elizabeth, Farouk of Egypt, and Shah Pahlavi of Iran to press criminal charges against him. As a result, he was sentenced to seven months in prison, although the complaint filed by Queen Elizabeth was dismissed because she wasn't technically the head of state. Nesin was later a contributor to Tan newspaper. He was among the contributors of the Forum magazine in the 1950s.
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. His son, Ali Nesin, is a prominent mathematician in Turkey.
The first time he traveled abroad was in 1965, because he was not given a passport in prior years. When he arrived in Bulgaria in 1965, he met the poet Recep Küpçü and took some of his manuscripts with him to Turkey.
In 1972, he founded the Nesin Foundation in Çatalca. 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 documentary, and all his works performed or used in radio or television.
Aziz Nesin was a political activist. In the aftermath of the 1980 military coup led by Kenan Evren, Turkish intelligentsia faced heavy oppression. Aziz Nesin led a number of intellectuals to rebel against the military government, by issuing the Petition of Intellectuals (Turkish: Aydınlar Dilekçesi), notable signatories of which included Yalçın Küçük, Korkut Boratav, Atıf Yılmaz and Murat Belge. For this, president Kenan Evren accused him of "treason". This prompted a lawsuit from Nesin, although the suit was unsuccessful. He was the two-time President of Türkiye Yazarlar Sendikası (Turkish Writers' Union) once from 1985 to 1986, and subsequently from 1987 to 1990.
He was also a critic of Islam. In the early 1990s, he began a translation of Salman Rushdie's controversial novel, The Satanic Verses. This provoked outrage from Islamic organizations, who were gaining popularity throughout Turkey, who then tried to hunt him down. On 11 July 1992, while attending a mostly Alevi cultural festival in the central Anatolian city of Sivas, a mob organized by Islamists gathered around the Madimak Hotel, where the festival attendants were accommodated. After hours of siege and protesting, the intruders set the hotel on fire. After flames engulfed several lower floors of the hotel, firetrucks managed to get close, and Aziz Nesin and many guests of the hotel escaped. Nesin was beaten during the chaos while firefighters rescued him. However, 37 people were killed. This event, is also known as the Sivas massacre. It also deepened the rift between fundamentalist Muslims and those that they regard as infidels.
He devoted his last years to combating religious fundamentalism. Aziz Nesin died on 6 July 1995 in Çeşme, İzmir, due to a heart attack. After his death, his body was buried at an unknown location in land belonging to the Nesin Foundation, without any ceremony, as requested in his will.
Several of Nesin's works have been published in English translation.
Istanbul Boy: The Autobiography of Aziz Nesin (Turkish title: Böyle Gelmiş Böyle Gitmez) is a multi-volume autobiography by Turkish writer Aziz Nesin published by University of Texas Press and Southmoor Studios, in English language translation by Joseph S. Jacobson.
Istanbul Boy: The Autobiography of Aziz Nesin, Part I. Austin: University of Texas Press. 1977. ISBN 0-292-73809-9.
Istanbul Boy: The Autobiography of Aziz Nesin, Part II. Austin: University of Texas Press. 1979. ISBN 0-292-73820-X.
Istanbul Boy: The Autobiography of Aziz Nesin, Part III. Austin: University of Texas Press. 1990. ISBN 0-292-73864-1.
Istanbul Boy: The Autobiography of Aziz Nesin, Part IV. Utah: Southmoor Studios. 2000. ISBN 978-0-9673703-5-4.
Turkish Stories from Four Decades