POETITORIAL: Remembering a poet in exile
9 JULY 2018 by Efe Duyan In 1951, a small boat approached a Romanian cargo liner in the middle of the Black Sea. A man in the boat was waving and shouting, in French and Russian, “I am the Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet”. The ship stopped but for some time no one threw down a ladder. The man was taken onto the ship only after a tense delay. The captain had called Constanta first, they called Bucharest and Bucharest called Moscow. Once on the ship, the man’s relief turned into surprise when he entered the dining room, where a poster read “Free Nâzım Hikmet”. In Romania he was welcomed by the …