Pakdil, who went beyond the usual forms in Turkish literature and turned both the language and the page layout into a protest area, left an important mark in Turkish cultural life with his texts that were nourished by local values and captured a universal perspective, and the climate of thought he established.
The master poet and writer, whose name was recorded as "Nureddin Pakdil" in the population records, was born in 1934, in the Yörükselim District of Kahramanmaraş, as the son of Mehmet Emin Ziyai and Hatice Vecihe Hanım.
The thought and writing adventure of Pakdil, the owner of the lines "I carry Jerusalem like a wristwatch/To Jerusalem without being adjusted/You will waste your time/It freezes/You lose sight of it", gained momentum with the "Büyük Doğu" magazine, which he met in secondary school.
He met master literary figures during his university years.
The author, who presented his first texts to the readers in the "Democracy Service" and "Gençlik" newspapers published in Kahramanmaraş, published the "Hamle" magazine with his two school friends while he was studying at Maraş High School in 1954-1955. The publication quickly went beyond the high school environment and attracted the attention of many writers and poets from Ankara to Istanbul.
Pakdil, who graduated from Istanbul University Faculty of Law, came into contact with names such as Necip Fazıl Kısakürek and Sezai Karakoç during his student years. About that period, his student, writer Necip Evlice, said, "When the Master went to Istanbul, he called his university years the years in which he could not write. He struggled a lot between what was taught in classes and what he believed in. The years he studied at the university, before May 27, were the times when Türkiye was going through difficult and turbulent times." he said.
After his graduation, Pakdil managed the art pages of the "Yeni Istiklal" newspaper for a while. The master writer, who completed his military service in Bitlis, started his career as a legal advisor in 1965 and continued his career at the State Planning Organization. Pakdil, who later left his job and continued writing, established strong ties with "Büyük Doğu" and "Diriliş" magazines throughout his life.
The monthly "Edebiyat" magazine, which he founded in 1969 with his friends such as Rasim Özdenören, Erdem Bayazıt and Akif İnan, and which he described as his "base of patience", was a school that brought countless poets and writers to Turkish literature until 1984. Literature Magazine Publications, founded in 1972, brought together 45 books containing both Pakdil's own texts and the works of his generation.
The author, who presented his works "Allegiance", "Notes of the West", "Notes of a Writer", "Mothers and Jerusalems", "Classy Stance", "Literature Tower", "Attachment" and "In the Form of Silence" to the readers, retired from the State Planning Organization in 1999, to which he returned in 1988.
He attracted attention with his work "Western Notes"
Pakdil, who attracted attention with his work titled "Western Notes" in which he conveyed his observations of Paris, defined his intellectual line as "I am a revolutionary writer with an anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-nazist, anti-zionist, anti-socialist and, most importantly, anti-pharaohist consciousness and will, especially in Turkey." He expressed it with his words.
In one of his statements, Pakdil pointed out that the basis of his revolutionism was his unwavering devotion to Islam, and stated that the religion of Islam envisaged the concept of permanent revolution that would last until the end of time. The poet argued that Muslims' revolutionary struggle should continue to destroy the dominant powers that are the source of cruelty, injustice and injustice as long as they exist, and argued that man can only receive the reward of his labor.
The master writer, who started to bring his 6-book essay series titled "Otel Gören Notebooks" to the readers in 1997, dealt with the analysis, questioning and coming to terms with himself of a writer in seclusion in the series.
Pakdil, who distinguishes himself in the literary world with his translations of poems and thought pieces from both Middle Eastern and Western literature, aims in his work "Notes of a Writer" as "Human! I defend you; against you!" He summarized it with the following sentence:
Poet Mürsel Sönmez explained the importance of Pakdil in Turkish literature as follows:
"The literary genres he writes are texts that intertwine with each other. He has poems, essays, theater plays and translations. Sometimes all these texts are so intertwined that they suddenly turn into poems or essays. In terms of intertextuality and imaginative language, Nuri Pakdil's texts are close to the texts of James Joyce and Marcel Proust, which are the first examples of postmodern texts."
Pakdil, who produced more than 40 works in the genres of poetry, diary, theatre, essays and letters, also included translations from Arabic and French in his texts. He used various pen names such as "N. Nuri Pakdil", "Emin Ziyaioğlu", "Emin Nuri Ziyaioğlu", "Ebubekir Sonumut", "Murtaza Tunçgök", "İlyas Tarık", "Hamid Sıla", "Ali İmran" and "Yahya Hurşit" in his writings.
He was awarded the Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Prize
The unforgettable man of letters was deemed worthy of the 2019 Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Prize in the "literature" category, for his original works produced in the name of the sovereignty of local thought, his aesthetic expression language full of word choices that he introduced to Turkish literature, and his ideas that suggest holding people from their hearts.
Pakdil received the "Ministry of Culture and Tourism Culture and Arts Grand Award" in 2013 and the "Necip Fazıl Respect Award" in 2014.
The author's play "Hope" was presented to the audience by Ankara State Theater in the 2014-2015 theater season.
About Jerusalem: "Half of my heart is Mecca, the rest is Medina. There is Jerusalem on it like a veil." The author, who wrote his words, went to Jerusalem, where he wrote poems, in the last years of his life, at the age of 81, and performed Friday prayers in Masjid al-Aqsa.
Saying that he found the Islamic world's attitude towards Jerusalem very "tragic", Pakdil said, "The salvation of the Islamic world will only be possible if Türkiye stands up. I believe that the Islamic movement on earth will start from Türkiye. I always keep this belief alive within me. I attach great importance to the Islamic awakening in Türkiye." he said.
Pakdil, who saw art as a transformative field of action, passed away on October 18, 2019, at the age of 85, and was buried in Taceddin Dervish Lodge in Ankara.
Some of the works written by the author, about whom symposiums were held, theses, magazines, books and documentaries were made, are as follows:
"Umut" (play) 1974, "Table of Wonders" (translation) 1974, "Moon Opera" (translation) 1975, "Bağlama" (essay) 1979, "Put Yapımevleri" (play) 1980, "Notes of a Writer-I" (essay) 1980, "Notes of a Writer-II" (essay) 1981, "Literature Tower" (essay) 1984, "Derviş Hüneri" (essay) 1997, "Arabian Hour" (essay) 1997, "Classy Stand" (essay) 1997, "Ottoman Simitciler Ode" (poem) 1999, "Copper Period" (play) 2014.
