Beyond the Walls: Selected Poems

Nâzim Hikmet’s poetry combines passion and simplicity with sophistication, producing work of enduring significance. He was both a superb narrative and lyric poet; his immense and continuing popularity in Turkey testifies to his common touch. This extensive selection ranges from his epic poem ’Sheikh Bedreddin’ to the moving prison poems addressed to his wife. The book is introduced by the leading expert on Turkish literature, Talât Sait Halman, former Professor of Turkish Literature at Princeton and New York Universities and currently at Bilkent University, Ankara. Nâzim Hikmet (1902-63), Turkey’s greatest modern poet, was a political prisoner in Turkey for more than fourteen years and spent the last thirteen years of his life in exile, mainly in Russia, travelling widely through Europe and further afield. Ruth Christie was born and educated in Scotland. She studied Turkish at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She has taught English literature and has been translating novels, short stories and poetry from the Turkish for many years. Richard McKane is a poet and the translator of Selected Poems of Anna Akhmatova’ and, with Elizabeth McKane, of Mandelstam’s The Moscow Notebooks’ and The Voronezh Notebooks’. Anvil has published The Pillar of Fire’, his selection from the poetry of Nikolay Gumilyov. Ruth Christie and Richard McKane have jointly translated the Turkish poet Oktay Rifat’s selected poems, Voices of Memory’.

Richard McKane is a poet and translator of poetry from Russian and Turkish. He lives and works in London. Ruth Christie was born and educated in Scotland. She has been translating novels, short stories and poetry from the Turkish for many years. Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963), Turkey’s greatest modern poet, was a political prisoner in Turkey for eighteen years and spent the last thirteen years of his life in exile, travelling widely through Europe and further afield.