Reshad Enis Aygen

Born 1909, in Edirne. Turkish poet.

Aygen graduated from a trade school in Istanbul. He has been published since 1930. The collections of short stories I Drag My Sword, Prayer for the Dead, and Zeineb, Private First Class are devoted to the national liberation movement. He wrote the novels In the Name of the Law (1932), The Gong Sounded (1933), The Smell of Earth (1944), and others. The sentimentality and melodrama characteristic of Aygen’s early works are overcome in his novels of the late 1940’s and 1950’s—for example, Our Struggle for Bread (1947), Weeping Wall (1949), and The Inn (1953). Aygen knows well the needs and aspirations of the Turkish peasant. His works are noted for their humanity and democratic tendencies.