Kürtler ve Kürdistan

Kemal Burkay was born in the Kızılkale (Dırban) village of Tunceli (historically known as Dersim) in 1937. He studied primary school in his own village and the surrounding villages, graduated from the teacher training school in 1955, and Ankara Faculty of Law in 1960, and chose the profession of lawyer. He was interested in literature and his first written works were poems, stories and novels. His first novel was published in 1964 and his first poetry book was published in 1966. His literary works were initially entirely in Turkish. Later, with his own efforts, he learned the Kurdish written language and used it in addition to Turkish in his writing life. He wrote his works in these two languages. Burkay had acquired left-wing views during his university years and was sympathetic to socialism. He became a member of the Turkish Workers' Party in 1965 and took an active role in the organization of this party in Tunceli and surrounding provinces. He was soon elected to the party's central committee. He was arrested and tortured several times for his political work and his writings on the Kurdish issue. After the 1971 military coup, he was arrested again and remained in prison for about a year. He went abroad in 1972 and returned two years later, when the general amnesty was announced. He founded the Kurdistan Socialist Party with a group of friends in 1974 and was appointed General Secretary. Burkay held this position for 29 years until the party's 7th Congress held in the fall of 2003. He went abroad in 1980 and could not return because he was wanted after the coup. He took asylum in Sweden in 1982. He returned to his country after 31 years, on July 30, 2011. In addition to his political work, Burkay produced a series of works on both political issues and Kurdish history and language, and also continued to write poetry. So far, he has published around 60 works, including 9 poetry books. His works include children's books, theater plays, humor stories and essays. In addition to free poetry, he wrote more than 300 rubai in the Kurdish language. He later translated most of them into Turkish and published them together with the Kurdish ones. His works were translated into various languages. In 2004, he received Italy's Preraio Cremona award for his poem Helin.