Turkey’s first culture minister, famed man of letters, passes away at 83

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

Salman has 70 copyrighted and translated books to his name, as well as more than 3,000 articles and 50,000 poetry translations.

Turkey’s first ever culture and tourism minister, Talat Sait Halman, passed away on Dec. 4.

Halman was born in Istanbul in 1931. He studied at Istanbul’s Robert Collage and got his master’s degree in political science from Columbia University.

Between 1953 and 1986, Halman taught at prestigious American universities, including Columbia University, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania. He also served as chairman of the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures at New York University between 1986 and 1996.

He later served as Turkey’s culture minister, as a member of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s executive board, as a member of the executive committee of the PEN American Center, and as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Turkish Literature.

Throughout his busy career, Halman was awarded Columbia University’s “Thornton Wilder Prize,” an honorary doctorate from the Boğaziçi University, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Medal, and the British “Grand Cross.”

From 2005, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Letters at Ankara’s Bilkent University, where he led the program in Turkish languages and literature.

He has 70 copyrighted and translated books to his name, as well as more than 3,000 articles and 50,000 poetry translations.