Sadri Ertem

Born 1900 in Istanbul; died Nov. 12, 1943, in Ankara. Turkish writer.

Sadri Ertem graduated from the philosophy section of the literature faculty of the University of Istanbul in 1920 and worked as a journalist and teacher. He served as deputy to the Grand National Assembly from Kütahya Vilayet from 1939 to 1943. His first works were pubished in 1917. Sadri Ertem’s first novel, When the Spinning Wheels Stop (1931), which describes the social ills of the Turkish countryside, became widely known. His short-story collection Mister Comma (1935) depicts cosmopolitan circles of the Turkish intelligentsia, while his novel The Degraded Ones (1935) describes the life of déclassé elements. His collections of novellas, which include The Peasant in the Top Hat (1933) and Fear (1934), are anti-imperialist and antibourgeois in tone. In articles on public affairs Sadri Ertem advocated the social mission of literature.