FROM ALBUM NOTES by Giampiero Bellingeri:
Nâzım Hikmet (Thessaloniki 1902-Moscow1963) actually is the most important modern Turkish poet. His strong and lyric voice denounces and announces the injustices committed by powerful people of Turkey and of the world. Because of this political involvement – even if he was the scion of a family of pashas, governors and notables- he was persecuted and many times jailed also for long periods- the longest goes from 1938 to 1950. All his poetic and prose works (poetic collections, epos, dramas, novels, critical essays, researches about folk heritages) focus on love and struggle, even in his first verses. These impulses, changed into artistic forms, are so common in his poetry that we can define his verses like pure election and practice of a fight-for-love writing: against war and oppression in favour of peace and affection, with the most deep and dramatic expression of human feelings. And with a great moral awareness – till physical sufferance- about art, work, and cohabitation: about existence. […] (Translation by Fabiana Binarelli)