Aziz Nesin’s birthday to be celebrated in İzmir, Istanbul

ISTANBUL

The İzmir Metropolitan Municipality has organized a festival for the 100th anniversary of late writer, intellectual and humorist Aziz Nesin’s birth, while events will also take place in Istanbul to mark the occasion. 

As part of the İzmir Humor Festival, to be organized from Dec. 18 to 20, humorists of various branches of art will come together. 

The opening of the event will be held on Dec. 18 at the Ahmed Adnan Saygun Arts Center with a panel titled “Marko Paşa’dan Aydınlar Dilekçesi’ne” (From Marko Pasha to the Petition of Intellectuals). 

Moderated by festival consultant Vecdi Sayar, the panel will host İnci Aral, Turgut Kazan, Bülent Tanık, İlhan Tekeli and Erbil Tuşalp, who were the first to sign the Petition of Intellectuals, which was issued under the leadership of Nesin in 1984. Those intellectuals who signed the petition and forwarded it to the presidency and parliament in 1984 were declared “treacherous” by Kenan Evren, the president of the period and the leader of the 1980 coup, and were subjected to legal action.

The second panel, titled the “Children of the Nesin Foundation,” will be moderated by İzmir parliamentarian Zeynep Altıok Akatlı. It will present photos by İsa Çelik and tell the establishment story of the Nesin Foundation. Later on, the managers of the foundation, Süleyman Cihangiroğlu and Özgün Dündar Cihangiroğlu, and students Aliye Ecem Şahin, Umut Başer and Neslişah Kahraman will speak about their memories with Nesin and the works of the foundation. 

After the panel, the exhibition titled “Ömrüne Sığmayan Adam: Aziz Nesin” (A Life Overflowing: Aziz Nesin) will open. 

The second day of the festival will be organized at İzmir Sanat in Kültürpark. The first event will be the screening of a documentary by Feyzi Tuna, “Çağdaş Nasreddin Hoca Aziz Nesin” (Aziz Nesin, the Modern Nasreddin Hodja), after which Tuna will hold a talk with the audience. 

On Dec. 19, a panel titled “Gülümseyen Sanat” (Smiling Art) will be moderated by Turgut Çeviker in the same venue. Humor in various branches of art will be discussed at the panel. Theater Kumpanya will perform the play “Azizim” on the same night. 

On Nesin’s birthday, Dec. 20, a talk titled “Yüzde 100 Aziz Nesin” (100 Percent Aziz Nesin) will be given by cartoonist Cihan Demirci. The other event of the day will be “Humor in Media” to be attended by journalist-writer Aydın Engin, screenwriter Umur Bugay and radio producer Ayça Şen. 

The festival will be closed with the play “Azizname” at İzmir Sanat. Adapted by Nesin’s stories, the play will be performed by the Ankara Art Theater (AST). 


Charity event in Istanbul

Another event for Nesin’s birthday will be held on Dec. 19 at Dedeman Istanbul Hotel. Internationally-acclaimed Turkish pianist Fazıl Say and violinist Cihat Aşkın will give a concert at the event. 

Hosted by Nesin’s son Ali Nesin, the revenues of the night will be donated to the Aziz Nesin Foundation, which Aziz Nesin described as “my biggest artwork.” 

Since its establishment in 1973 in Istanbul’s Çatalca district, the foundation provides education and accommodation opportunity for hundreds of children. 

A limited number of invitations are sold for the event and they can be purchased by calling 0532-671-1941 and 0212-783-6358.