This is a lovely memoir about how the author came to know the famous communist poet Nâzım Hikmet.
Both Kemal and Hikmet had been jailed for leftist activities, allegedly inciting rebellion in the Turkish armed forces. While Kemal was a young, budding poet, Hikmet was pushing 40 and already an established literary figure.
In many ways the book reminded me of the film 'Il Postino', in which an exiled Pablo Neruda strikes up a mentoring friendship with a young Italian postman. It deals with similar themes: exile, male friendship, poetry and its relationship to everyday life and language, enjoyment of nature and simple pleasures. I'm a complete sucker for that film, and I found this book even more affecting. 'Il Postino' is a work of fiction whereas 'In Jail with Nâzım Hikmet' is a true story, appended by real letters between the two authors. That makes the sweetness of the friendship and the sadness of their predicament, condemned to spend years in a shabby prison away from their loved ones, all the more vivid.
I've not actually read any of Nâzım Hikmet's work, although once I have done I will have to revisit this book, since it details how many of the people he knew in jail went on to inspire characters in his poems.
The only thing holding me back from giving this a 5 star review are the persistent and often dumbfounding typos. 'Years' is persistently translated as 'tears', sentences occasionally repeat themselves half way through, or trail off into nothing in what are clearly just mistakes. At times this disrupts the meaning of what's being said. It's a shame, because you would think even a cursory proof read by an editor would have caught most of them.
Don't let that put you off, though! It's still a wonderful, humane book.