Talât Sait Halman, GBE (7 July 1931 – 5 December 2014) was a famous Turkish poet, translator and cultural historian. He was the first Minister of Culture of Turkey. From 1998 onward, he taught at Bilkent University as the dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Letters.
Biography
Halman received his B.A. from Robert College in Istanbul. In the mid-1950s he received his master's degree from Columbia University in political science, international relations and international law.
During his long academic career, Halman taught at Columbia University, Princeton University (1965–1971) and (1972–1980), the University of Pennsylvania and New York University, where he also served as Chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures. He taught at Bilkent University in Ankara from 1998, rising to become the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Letters. While there, he helped to found a program in Turkish languages and literature with a goal of introducing new critical approaches.
His honors include Columbia University's Thornton Wilder Prize for lifetime achievement as translator, an honorary doctorate from the Boğaziçi University, a Rockefeller Fellowship in the Humanities, the UNESCO Medal, and "Knight Grand Cross, the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire". ).
In 1971, he served as Turkey's first minister of culture. During his tenure, he coordinated the whirling dervishes' landmark first tour of the US in 1971. In 1976 he oversaw the first American museum tour of historical and cultural artifacts from the Ottoman Sultans' palace. From 1980 to 1982, he served as the Turkey's first ambassador for cultural affairs. Based in New York, he inaugurated a comprehensive program of Turkish cultural activities. From 1991 to 1995 he was a member of UNESCO's Executive Board.
He served as a member of the Executive Committee of the PEN American Center and worked at the Center's Translation Committee. He was a long-time member of the Poetry Society of America and a member of the Editorial Board of World Literature Today from 1967.
In 1971, during her visit to Turkey, Queen Elizabeth II conferred a Knight Grand Cross (GBE) on Halman.
Halman was also a well-known translator into English as well as Turkish. His books in English include two collections of his poems ("Shadows of Love", published in Canada, and "A Last Lullaby", published in the United States), Contemporary Turkish Literature, Modern Turkish Drama, Living Poets of Turkey, three books of the 13th century Anatolian mystic folk poet Yunus Emre, Rumi and the Whirling Dervishes (with Metin And), Suleiman the Magnificent - Poet, Turkish Legends and Folk poems, Tales of Nasreddin Hodja, and others. His 1984 book on Celalettin Rumi preceded and contributed to the wave of Rumi enthusiasm in the United States in the 1990s. His books on Rumi, Nasrettin Hoca, and Turkish Legends books are widely available throughout Turkey. He also published books featuring selections from the work of Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca, Orhan Veli Kanık, Sait Faik Abasıyanık, and Melih Cevdet Anday. His renditions of three Turkish plays (I, Anatolia by Güngör Dilmen, Old Photographs by Dinçer Sümer, and In Ambush by Cahit Atay) have also been published.
His books in Turkish include nine collections of his original poems, two massive anthologies of the poetry of ancient times, a book of Ancient Egyptian poems, the selected poems of Wallace Stevens and Langston Hughes, an anthology of living American poets, a book of American woman poets, his verse translations of Shakespeare's Complete Sonnets, a book of Eskimo poems, a one-actor play featuring Shakespeare, etc. He has translated Robinson Jeffers' version of "Medea"', Neal Simon's "Lost in Yonkers"', Dear Liar" (based on George Bernard Shaw-Mrs Patrick Campbell letters) and Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" (for the two latters plays he won Turkey's top play translation awards.) He was the first Turkish translator of William Faulkner.
In poetry Talat Sait Halman found, as he is quoted in a biographical essay listed below: "freedom of intellectual and emotional exploration; freedom in creative prospects..." (Festschrift, p. 5)