Bullet and Pen

One Portrait, Two Countries, Three Lives: The Life Story of Author Osman Necmi Gürmen Even starting from his familial roots, Turkish author Osman Necmi Gürmen lived caught between the two poles of East and West throughout every phase of his life. From a childhood in the environment of the Ottoman palatial court to a youth in the ruins of post-War Paris which remains one of the primary centers of Western knowledge and lifestyle; the remarkable course of Osman Necmi Gürmen’s life then took him to the extremely arduous conditions of tribal life in a village in Eastern Anatolia, where he found himself drawn into the middle of a bloody struggle for power. His life was defined by an aristocracy caught between the East and the West, a Western bourgeoisie reborn from its own ashes, and a feudal lifestyle that remained unchanged for centuries despite the ideals of the young Republic. He was not an “outsider” in any of these environments; he attempted to fulfil the social requirements and became a proprietor of each. Osman Necmi Gürmen is a man of letters who writes novels in French in France; he was also a feudal lord who was at the heart of a tribal battle for power in Siverek; he was one of the handful of intellectuals who founded a haven in Bodrum for what was to become one of the most important retreats for the petit bourgeoisie of the Turkish Republic after the 1960’s; and he is also an author who writes in Turkish, drawing inspiration from his own life and the extreme moments of Turkish history.