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Aziz Nesin (1915-1995) has published over one hundred books. He is a popular Turkish humorist. His birth name was Mehmet Nusret.
After serving as a career officer for several years, he became the editor of a series of satirical periodicals with a socialist slant. He was jailed several times for his political views. Nesin provided a strong indictment of the oppression and brutalization of the common man. He satirized bureaucracy and exposed economic inequities in stories that effectively combine local color and universal truths. Aziz Nesin has been presented with numerous awards in Turkey, Italy, Bulgaria and the former Soviet Union. His works have been translated into over thirty languages.
In 1972, he founded Nesin Foundation. The purpose of the Nesin Foundation is to take, each year, four poor and destitute children into the Foundation's home and provide every necessity - shelter, education and training, starting from elementary school - until they complete high school, a trade school, or until they acquire a vocation. Aziz Nesin has donated, gratis, to the Nesin Foundation his copyrights in their entirety for all his works in Turkey or other countries, including: all of his published books, all plays to be staged, all copyrights for films, and all his works performed or used in radio or television.
Aziz Nesin was a political activist. After the military coup led by Kenan Evren in 1980, the entire country, including intellectuals, were under strong opression. Aziz Nesin led a number of intellectuals to an oppositionary action against the military government, known as "Aydınlar Dilekçesi" (Petition of Intellectuals). In the last years of his life, he devoted himself to fight against ignorance and religious fundamentalism.
After his death, his body was buried into an unknown location in the land of Nesin Foundation without any ceremony, as suggested by his will.
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