Literary production, currents and politics between 1960 and 1980 in Turkey

This dissertation examines the increasing visibility of literary activities as a part of other cultural activities between 1960 and 1980. During these two decades, there was an increasing influence of literary activities, literary production, literary world throughout large parts of the Turkish society. This may be also seen as a shaping, a reconstruction, or an expansion of a more effective literary world, literary public and literary market containing many different trends or currents. This work also assesses the intricate relations between literary culture and politics. To put it in other words, the hypothesis is that a better understanding of the intellectual and political atmosphere of Turkey in the 1960s and in the early 1970s can be achieved through an examination of cultural and mainly literary life, the currents of that period, as these reflected, sustained and gave general expression to the prevalent intellectual and political tendencies of the period. It will be emphasized that the political identity which was adopted by the literary actors was generally one critical of the existing political and social system. The intellectual climate will be examined via literature. I argue that the men of letters, literary actors played important roles along with academics and journalists through their public, intellectual identity in the social life from 1960 to the end of the 1970s.