Living Yaşar Kemal
Prep ( May 14, 2016)
“Yaşar Kemal Field Trip” which has a special place and significance among the activities offered by the Turkish Language Department of TAC every year, took place on a very warm day of May. However, after the visits in previous years when Yaşar Kemal was alive, this first trip to his stomping grounds after his death was well worth it. TAC’s prep students who explored Hemite Village of the Osmaniye province felt that they were living in his story “Yellow Heat”. They toured the Yaşar Kemal Cultural Center and received information about the facility. They shared conversations in front of the “Memed My Hawk” statue. They climbed to the Hemite Castle: the landscape which inspired the internationally acclaimed Turkish writer was engraved in everyone’s minds. TAC students also interviewed Veli Kılıç and Ahmet Coşar, Kemal’s childhood friends. They traced Kemal’s stories back to the village square, and paid their tribute at Yaşar Kemal’s father’s grave. The visit which continued in the mosquito bites and the broiling yellow heat ended with a meal in Kadirli. As the day was drawing to an end, these invigorating lines from Yaşar Kemal echoed in our minds: “A person takes up as big a space in the universe as their heart, not their body”.