A Tatar Writer in Pursuit of Roots: Nurihan Fettah

Abstract

Through the middle of the 20th century, an interest evoked towards to Turkish history in Tatar literature. In this era, works about the forgotten history, moral and social life of Turks, especially Tatars started to be produced. Nurihan Fettah was one of the first who produced such works. Nurihan Fettah is an important writer who wrote about various topics such as poetry, story, povest (long story), novel and theatre in Tatar literature. Nurihan Fettah's author life can be examined in two parts which are, first is between 1950-1970 and the second part is after the 1970, he grew interest in literature in his early ages and he kept developing in the field. His works in the first part of his author life are mostly poems, stories and theatre scripts, but after the 1970's, he started to write historical novels about distant past of Tatar Turks that made him more and more famous. At the same time, Nurihan Fettah, who leaded the way on historical novels of modern Tatar literature, affected the authors who came after him in this context. Nurihan Fettah wrote the first and the most beautiful pieces of historical novel in Tatar literature and thus he won the award of Abdullah Tukay in 1994. In the maturity of his writing life, Nurihan Fettah researched about deep roots of Turkish history and apart from his novels written with these findings, he embodied important works in terms of science. In this study, it is aimed to present Nurihan Fettah, who has an important place in Tatar literature, and his works.