Final Farewell to Vedat Türkali

Vedat Türkali -- real name Abdülkadir (Demirkan) Pirhasan – was born in Samsun on 13 May 1919.

He completed his high-school education in Samsun, and graduated from the Turkish Language and Literature Department of Istanbul University’s Literature Faculty in 1942.

In the same year he married Merih Pirhasan.

Türkali, who worked as a literature teacher in Maltepe and Kuleli Military High School, was sentenced in 1951 to nine years in prison for “political actions”, but was released on probation at the end of his seventh year. He was a member of the Turkey Communist Party (TKP).

In 1960 he founded Gar Publications with Rıfat Ilgaz.

In 1960 he began working as a screenwriter with the Dolandırıcılar Şahı company. His fim, Those Who Wake in the Darkness won the prize for Best Script at the 1965 Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival.

In the 2002 election he ran as a candidate with the Democratic People’s Party and became actively involved in politics.

His major Works include: One Day All Alone (novel, 1974), Old Poems, New Songs (poems, 1979), One of Three Films (screenplays, 1979), Blue Darkness (novel, 1983), Old Films (screenplays, 1984), Where is this Boat Going (writings and memoirs, 1985), The Branches Must be Green (play, 1985), Individual Death (novel, 1989), Kurdish Writings for Freedom (writings, 1996), Trust (novel, 1999), Communist (memoirs, 2001), This Corpse Will Rise (play, 2002), Lost Novels (novel, 2004), The Coffee of Lying Witnesses (novel, 2009), It’s finished, it isn’t Finished (novel, 2014).

He won first place in the Milliyet Milliyet Publications Novel Competition in 1974, the Orhan Kemal Novel Prize in 1976, and the White Seagull Literary Prize of Honor in 2016.

The actor Deniz Türkali and director Barış Pirhasan are his sons.