Yaşar Kemal: I Wish Turkey Would Be Like My Village

Author Yaşar Kemal attended an opening ceremony of a park and culture house dedicated to his name in the southern Osmaniye’s Gökçedam (Hemite) village - his home village. 

According to ntvmsnbc, speaking at the opening ceremony, Yaşar Kemal reminded that he was never discriminated in his village due to his Kurdish ethnicity and wished “Turkey to be like his village”. 

He also added:

“I was a Kurdish kid. While we were playing outside, my friends used to fight each other and beat everybody. But they would not touch me. Even once, they never brought up the fact that I was Kurdish.”

“No villager excluded me due to my Kurdish origin. We were raised in a heaven. No one did me no harm, including my mum, dad and grandfather. 

“Now I am crying from here: Let Turkey hear, let Turkey know, let Turkey say that “Let Turkey be like Yaşar Kemal’s village. And let me write that. I do the writing, not the talking. I will certainly write this as well.” (EKN/BM)