Writing Life
The writing life of Ahmet Kabaklı started with the critic titled Is the liar Yunus Emre or Gölpınarlı? published in Son Saat newspaper on 20 November 1946 when he was a university student. He wrote polemic, humor and satire articles as Ayın Hercümerci (Mixture of the Month) in Hareket magazine as from 1947. Kabaklı, who worked as the editor of Karacadağ magazine during his days as a teacher in Diyarbakır became a gradually well-known person of literature community. He also went on writing poems and articles in magazines such as Bizim Türkiye, Hisar, İstanbul, Çağrı, Türk Folklor Araştırmaları, Kubbealtı Akademi Mecmuası, Mavera, Pınar, Kültür ve Sanat, Türk Edebiyatı apart from Hareket and Karacadağ.
Ahmet Kabaklı, who made himself known substantially in Turkish Press, wrote over twenty thousand articles in subjects concerning cultural life attracting the attention of wide communities and executives in Newspapers such as Son Saat, Tercüman, Yeni Haber and Türkiye. His articles in Tercüman newspaper were first published in the same column together with the other two winners of the contest in turn under the title Winners of our Article Contest. His articles met his readers even at intervals because of his going to Paris for his educational internship under the title From Far Away. He wrote articles from Paris within this separation period for the newspaper under titles Paris Notes, Paris Letters. In 1959, he graduated from Ankara Law Faculty.
He started to work as a lawyer, meanwhile the newspaper changed hands and its new owner Nihat Karaveli wanted him to write for the newspaper. Kabaklı, accepting this offer, went on writing in his column named in the daylight in Tercüman as from 1961. He had troubles because of his nationalist ideas in periods when the owners of Tercüman newspaper changed, and he did not receive any money against his articles he wrote for two years. On 11 October 1961, Kemal Ilıcak joined the partners of Tercüman. Then, upon Kemal Ilıcaks being the privileged owner, he initiated a fight of fixing and saving the country from the bad together with his other writer friends. The newspaper started to follow a nationalist-conservative line increasing the number of its readers. Kabaklı was loved by the Turkish nation, especially the youth with his articles.
Kabaklı carried the important issues of our language, literature and culture to his column in the newspaper. In 1986, he discontinued his articles for a period of time. The publishing life of this newspaper lasted for 49 days. Kabaklı, discontinuing his newspaper articles for a period of 15 months, did not remain idle, and published Temellerin Duruşması, in which he explained our late history and a scenario, Şair-i Cihan Nedim. His writing life in Tercüman in which he began to write on 1 February 1988, came to an end on 2 March 1991. Kabaklı began to write in a column of Türkiye newspaper named Gün Işığında (in the daylight) as from 19 March 1991. This lasted until 19 November 2000. His last article in Türkiye newspaper was Damda deve aranır mı? (Looking for camel on the roof?).
Ahmet Kabaklı pioneered establishment of a Literature Community together with the well-known people of science and thought environment of his times in order to support young and skillful persons and to attempt to develop national lines in the thought, art and literature field of Turkish nation in 1970. Among the founders, there were many politicians, poets and writers such as Nihat Sami Banarlı, Mehmet Kaplan, Oktay Aslanapa, Necmettin Hacıeminoğlu, Samiha Ayverdi, Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi, İlhan Ayverdi, Tarık Buğra, Mümtaz Turhan, Erol Güngör, Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, Ali Nihat Tarlan, Tahsin Demiray, Muharrem Ergin, Faruk Kadri Timurtaş, Mehmet Çınarlı, Gültekin Sâmancı, Muhittin Nalbantoğlu, Mustafa Necati Karaer, Zeki Ömer Defne, Arif Nihat Asya, İrfan Atagün, Emine Işınsu, Sevinç Çokum and Tahsin Banguoğlu.
In 1978, in order to promote and strengthen Turkish literature, art, culture and personages of the same, Turkish Literature Foundation was established being pioneered by Ahmet Kabaklı by Meşkûre Kabaklı, Rıfat İzzet Çokum, Sevinç Çokum, İskender Öksüz, Emine Işınsu Öksüz, Tahir Kutsi Makal, Süha Burçkin, İrfan Atagün, Halis Akaydın, Cahit Dodanlı and İsmail Gerçeksöz as founder members Ahmet Kabaklı was assigned to the chairmanship of the association and carried on this task until his death.
Ahmet Kabaklı Library was established within the foundation with books of Ahmet Kabaklı, who donated some of his books to the foundation. The foundation, which also started publishing activities, published forty eight books until now. Wednesday Talks, in which the important issues of our literature, art, culture and thought life are spoken which started at the times of Literature Community and turned into a tradition since then, carry on providing service to a broad mass of audiences under Turkish Literature Foundation with the enthusiasm of the first days.