Turkish Nomad: The Intellectual Journey of Talat S Halman

Here, Jayne L. Warner has created a unique biographical tapestry that illuminates not only the life of one of Turkey's leading literary and cultural authorities, but also the emergence of a republic in his native country, and sheds new light on the history of one of the world's great cities. Sumptuously illustrated throughout with evocative period pictures of Istanbul, Turkish Nomad tells the extraordinary life story of this poet, thinker, and diplomat. As a young boy, Halman surveyed the last vestiges of the Ottoman Empire, walked through the ruins of Byzantium, and grew up in the modern nation created by the charismatic Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Talat S. Halman would go on to serve the republic as its first minister of culture. The more than four decades Halman lived primarily in the United States are not overlooked but are used to discuss how his ideas developed as he taught at leading unversities-Princeton, Columbia, New York University-and introduced Americans to Turkish literature and culture through his translations and public lectures.We In the Turkish Nomad we follow the literary, scholastic, and journalistic journey of a restless writer, who might best be described by the title of one of his books, The Turkish Muse, his 2006 collection of literary reviews tracing the development of Turkish literature during the Turkish Republic.

About the Author

Jayne L. Warner is director of research at the Institute for Aegean Prehistory in Greenwich, CT. She holds a B.A. in classics, an M.A. in ancient history, and, from Bryn Mawr College, a Ph.D. in Near Eastern and Anatolian archaeology. Her publications include Elmal -Karata II: The Early Bronze Age Village of Karata . Warner has served as assistant editor for the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and executive director of the Poetry Society of America (New York). She has also served as director of the American Turkish Society (New York) and director of the New York Office of the Board of Trustees of Robert College of Istanbul. Warner is Associate Editor of Sleeping in the Forest: Stories and Poems by Sait Faik; Nightingales and Pleasure Gardens: Turkish Love Poems; A Brave New Quest: 100 Modern Turkish Poems; and Popular Turkish Love Lyrics and Folk Legends, and co-editor of An Anthology of Modern Turkish Drama. She is the editor of Cultural Horizons: A Festschrift in Honor of Talat S. Halman; The Turkish Muse: Views and Reviews, 1960s-1990s; Rapture and Revolution: Essays on Turkish Literature; and A Millennium of Turkish Literature: A Concise History."