Cemal Süreya

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title: "Cemal Süreya" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1931-births", "1990-deaths", "people-from-erzincan", "turkish-people-of-kurdish-descent", "zaza-people", "turkish-language-writers", "turkish-erotic-artists", "ankara-university-faculty-of-political-sciences-alumni", "20th-century-turkish-male-writers", "turkish-magazine-founders"] description: "Kurdish poet, writer, and translator" topic_path: "politics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cemal_Süreya" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Kurdish poet, writer, and translator ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox writer"]

Field	Value
name	Cemâl Süreya
image	Cemal Sureya.jpg
birth_name	Cemalettin Seber
birth_date	1931
birth_place	Erzincan, Turkey
death_date
death_place	Istanbul, Turkey
nationality	Turkish
occupation	Poet, writer
years_active	1953–1990
alma_mater	Faculty of Political Science, Ankara University
spouse	{{plainlist
children	2
partner	Tomris Uyar (1964–1967)
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| name = Cemâl Süreya | image = Cemal Sureya.jpg | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Cemalettin Seber | birth_date = 1931 | birth_place = Erzincan, Turkey | death_date = | death_place = Istanbul, Turkey | nationality = Turkish | occupation = Poet, writer | years_active = 1953–1990 | known_for = | alma_mater = Faculty of Political Science, Ankara University | spouse = {{plainlist|

| children = 2 | partner = Tomris Uyar (1964–1967) | notable_works = ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Cemal_Süreya_Bust_Maltepe.jpg" caption="Bust of Cemal Süreya at a park named after him in [[Maltepe, Istanbul]]."] ::

Cemal Süreya, known by his given name as Cemalettin Seber (1931, Erzincan – 9 January 1990, Istanbul), was a Turkish poet, writer, and translator. He was one of the pioneering poets of the İkinci Yeni (Second New Poetry) movement, a modernist movement in Turkish poetry. Although he made his first attempts at poetry with sketches in middle school and aruz in high school, his true poetic work began during his university years. In addition to his poetry collections; Üvercinka (1958), Göçebe (1965), Beni Öp Sonra Doğur Beni (1973), Uçurumda Açan (1984), Sıcak Nal (1988), Güz Bitigi (1988), and Sevda Sözleri (1990); he also wrote essays, critiques, diaries, and anthologies.

The most frequent themes in his works are love, women, loneliness, social and political criticism, death, the idea of God, portraits, and poetics in verse. He also translated nearly forty books from French into Turkish. With the exception of Onüç Günün Mektupları (1990), all of his articles and poems were first published in magazines and newspapers and then turned into books. Süreya, who held a socialist worldview, published the magazine Papirüs, in which he expressed his literary views and used it as a tool to express his ideas as an intellectual.

Biography

Cemal Süreya, whose real name was Cemalettin Seber, was born in Pülümür, Erzincan (now in Tunceli Province) in 1931. His exact birthday is unknown. He was born into a half-Kurdish, half-Zaza, Alevi-faith family that migrated from Pülümür to Erzincan. His father, Hüseyin Seber, who was born in Erzincan in 1905 and worked in the transportation business, was a Kurd. His mother, Güllü Hanım, known as "Gülbeyaz" and born in Karatuş in 1915, was a Zaza. His father, Hüseyin Bey, died in a traffic accident in 1957 and his mother, Güllü Hanım, died at the age of twenty-three due to bleeding following a miscarriage.

At age seven, Cemal Süreya and his family were among 181 families forcibly deported from Dersim (Tunceli) to Bilecik in 1938. He later described the experience in his poem '1938 Sürgün Şiiri'.

He graduated from the Political Sciences Faculty of Ankara University. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of the Papirüs literary magazine. Cemal Süreya is a notable member of the Second New Generation of Turkish poetry, an abstract and postmodern movement created as a backlash against the more popular-based Garip movement. Love, mainly through its erotic character, is a popular theme of Süreya's works. Süreya's poems and articles were published in magazines such as Yeditepe, Yazko, Pazar Postası, Yeni Ulus, Oluşum, Türkiye Yazıları, Politika, Aydınlık, and Somut. He is known to have been a primary influence on the poetry of Sunay Akın. He lost a letter "y" from his pen name – originally Süreyya – because of a lost bet with Turkish poet Sezai Karakoç.

Bibliography

Poetry

• Üvercinka (1958)
• Göçebe (1965)
• Beni Öp Sonra Doğur Beni (1973)
• Sevda Sözleri (Terms of Endearment, 1984)
• Güz Bitiği (1988)
• Sıcak Nal (1988)
• Sevda Sözleri (1990)

Articles

• Şapkam Dolu Çiçekle (1976)
• Günübirlik (1982)
• Onüç Günün Mektupları (1990)
• 99 Yüz (1990)
• Günler (1991)
• Aydınlık Yazıları/Paçal (1992)
• Oluşum'da Cemal Süreya (1992)
• Folklor Şiire Düşman (1992)
• Papirüs'ten Başyazılar (1992)
• Uzat Saçlarını Frigya (1992)
• Aritmetik iyi Kuşlar Pekiyi (1993) – for children

Translations

• Kürtler: Sosyolojik ve Tarihi İnceleme by Basil Nikitin, translated into Turkish under the pseudonym C.S.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography

• Siirgen.org – Biography and bibliography of Cemal Süreya

References

1. (2021-09-29). "Cemal Süreya da Dersim'den sürgün edilmiş".
2. "'Bizi bir köye attılar' diyen Cemal Süreya da Dersim'den sürgün edilmiş".
3. Gazetesi, Evrensel. "Bizi kamyona doldurdular".
4. (12 November 2011). "Cemal Süreya 'y' harfini nasıl kaybetti?". Gastebursa.com.
5. "Haber Detay".
6. Duvar, Gazete. (2021-11-01). "Hem sürgün, hem parasız, hem yatılı".
7. "KÜRTLER".

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