NÂZIM HİKMET AND HIS BORDER-CROSSING GENERATION

Nâzım Hikmet has been the subject of literally hundreds of books published in Turkey and elsewhere. While these works typically focus upon Nâzım’s writing and politics, James H. Meyer’s new biography of Nâzım Hikmet, Red Star over the Black Sea: Nâzım Hikmet and his Generation, takes a different approach, situating Nâzım Hikmet’s life within the of context of late-imperial border-crossing. Drawing upon archival materials collected in Moscow, Istanbul, Amsterdam, and Washington, DC, Meyer’s new book examines Nâzım Hikmet’s experiences alongside those of a broader generation of border-crossing Turkish communists. Born at the turn of the twentieth century and coming of age in the early 1920s, the women and men of Nâzım Hikmet’s generation were the last of the Ottomans. Children of empire, they had grown up amid an era of porous frontiers. By the time this generation had reached its third decade, however, the doors had already begun to close behind them.