Abstract:

Too often, the critical responses to September 12th literature ignore the significant body of ‘prison literature’ written during the rule of the military regime in 1980s Turkey because it is not deemed ‘literary’. This has happened on false grounds and on the assumptions of the ruling state elite. Prison literature written after the 1980 coup has been sidelined for literary exploration and analysis not on the grounds of the qualities of the writing itself, but because it is a collective voice that critics have been unwilling to listen to. This article makes the case that the novels, poems, and journals written by prisoners during the 1980s in Turkey have refugee status: they are exiled from the canonical literary works and their import goes unrecognised. For this purpose, I am going to introduce a new perspective on prison literature, analysing why it has been dismissed as a valid literary form and demonstrating areas where the works of prison literature provide insight into the study of September 12th. The article will firstly analyse the Turkish political environment of the 1970s and 80s and examine the ‘prison literature’ in the 80s Turkey; secondly, the work will broadly investigate the “New Voices Series” (Yeni Sesler Dizisi) by Belge Publications and show its impact in bringing to light the voices of those imprisoned following September 12th 1980 military coup d’état, before specifically focusing on two novels from the series, A. Kadir Konuk’s The Severance (Çözülme), and Hüseyin Şimşek’s The September Code. By doing so, I hope to make a start in bringing to light the importance of these novels and demonstrate what can be gleaned about the political atmosphere of the 1980s from the context of a literary analysis of September 12th, and make a case for their further and more detailed study.

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