Tarsus American College Dwells in Yaşar Kemal’s Geography
’’The world is a cultural garden with tens of thousands of flowers; each flower has its distinct color and smell. The plucking of a flower is the destruction of a color, of a smell”
Yaşar Kemal
Yaşar Kemal, one of the masters of Turkish literature, continues to live among us with his stories, depicting the realities we experience and the emotions we feel in these lands with the most vivid and powerful expressions. The “Yaşar Kemal Field Trip” organized by the Department of Turkish Language and Literature took place on May 31, 2019 with the participation of department teachers and prep students. The group visited Hemite village of Osmaniye Kadirli, where Yaşar Kemal was born, grew up and developed his first literary works. Seeing the seasonal workers in different parts of Çukurova along the way, TAC students encountered the reality surrounding Kemal’s books. First, they went to the Yaşar Kemal Cultural House and saw the first editions of the author's books and fragments from his life. They visited the house where Yaşar Kemal lived as a child, the mosque where his father died, the places he was inspired to write about and used as a space. They also conversed with villagers about Yaşar Kemal. The students then went to Hemite Castle, witnessing the magnificent view of the village. On their way to the castle, they shared their opinions about Yaşar Kemal and about the links between his protagonists and the characteristics of the physical environment. They stated that they felt the heat in his book of stories, “Yellow Heat”, and agreed that multitude of cultures add an unparalleled diversity to the community.