About Yaşar Kemal
Yaşar Kemal (Turkish pronunciation: [ˈjaʃaɾ ceˈmal]; born Kemal Sadık Gökçeli; 6 October 1923 – 28 February 2015) was a leading Turkish writer and a human rights activist. He received 38 awards during his lifetime and had been a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature on the strength of his 1955 novel Memed, My Hawk. An outspoken intellectual, he often did not hesitate to speak about sensitive issues, especially those concerning the oppression of the Kurdish people. He was tried in 1995 under anti-terror laws for an article he wrote for Der Spiegel highlighting the Turkish Army's destruction of Kurdish villages during the Turkish–Kurdish conflict. He was released but later received a suspended 20-month jail sentence for another article he wrote criticising racism in Turkey, especially against the Kurds. In 1943 Kemal published his first book Ağıtlar ("Ballads"), a compilation of folkloric themes. Kemal won nineteen literary prizes over his lifetime, and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973 by Dag Strömbäck and Per Wästberg. He became interested in writing as a means to record his work after talking to an itinerant peddler, who was doing his accounts.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.