# Nazım Hikmet's Prison Football Fouls in 1943

*Culture, Art & Literature · Sofia Bellini · 2026-08-19*

## TL;DR

In 1943, at Bursa Prison, Nazım Hikmet and Orhan Kemal, cellmates and fellow writers, played football together. Hikmet played aggressively and kicked Kemal hard during a game, earning the label of foul king. The incident became part of their shared prison lore, remembered for its mix of humor and intensity.

## Key facts

- In 1943, Nazım Hikmet and Orhan Kemal were cellmates at Bursa Prison in Turkey.
- During a prison football match, Hikmet kicked Kemal hard, becoming known as the foul king.
- Kemal later wrote about the incident in his memoir, capturing the poet's competitive spirit.
- The football games were part of daily prison life, offering a rare escape from confinement.

## Two Poets, One Cell, and a Prison Football Match

In 1943, inside the walls of Bursa Prison in northwestern Turkey, two of the country's most significant literary voices shared the same ward: the poet Nazım Hikmet and the novelist-to-be Orhan Kemal. Their unlikely friendship, forged in confinement, produced one of the most charming football anecdotes in Turkish cultural history. The story begins not with a ball, but with a personality.

Nazım Hikmet carried himself with a quiet respect that disarmed even his political enemies. He avoided arguments unless absolutely forced into them, and sometimes even then he held his tongue. This was a man who, despite being imprisoned, earned genuine affection from people who disagreed with everything he stood for.

Orhan Kemal, younger and still finding his voice, looked up to the famous poet. He brought his poems to Nazım for feedback, and the older writer did not soften his blows. "Terrible," he would say. "Awful." The criticism stung, but it came from a place of honesty.

Then came a turning point. One day Nazım read the opening of a story Orhan Kemal had written. He put the pages down and gave his verdict: "Stop writing poetry. Switch to prose." Orhan hesitated, saying stories were unfamiliar territory. Nazım's reply was pure encouragement: "Even better. You won't fall under anyone's influence, and you'll find your own unique form."

But the prison had more than poetry and prose on offer. In the yard, inmates played football. According to the story, the head guard would occasionally stop the games, reportedly suspecting that the ball flying over the wall and coming back was being used to smuggle hashish. Whether that suspicion was real or an excuse, the matches were sometimes interrupted.

On one particular day, the guard was in a good mood, and the ball was secured. A match was on. Nazım Hikmet announced he wanted to play, and he joined the opposing team facing Orhan Kemal. The poet was not nearly as skilled with his feet as he was with words. The younger players slipped past him easily, dribbling around him and driving him to distraction.

His competitive fire burned hot. He flipped his gray cap backward, shuffled his teammates around, and barked orders at them. Every goal conceded sent him into a fury. His face flushed red, his blue eyes blazed, and his yellow eyebrows seemed to bristle with indignation.

And when someone dared to dribble past him? That was the ultimate insult. He turned into the king of fouls, grabbing, shoving, and kicking at opponents with abandon. Orhan Kemal himself received a particularly memorable blow.

"One day I took a real kick from him," Orhan later wrote in his memoir *Nazım Hikmet'le 3,5 Yıl*. "Between you and me, it was a very exquisite kick."

There is something deeply human in that image: the great poet, red-faced and furious, chasing younger men across a prison yard, committing fouls with the same intensity he brought to his verses. Football, for that one afternoon, was not poetry. It was something far more important. It was escape.

## "Stop Poetry, Switch to Prose": The Advice That Changed a Career

In 1943, inside Bursa Prison, a young writer named Orhan Kemal nervously handed his carefully crafted poems to his cellmate, the celebrated poet Nazım Hikmet. The verdict came back brutal and swift: "rezalet" (disaster) and "berbat" (terrible). It was the kind of criticism that could crush a budding artist, but instead, it redirected the course of Turkish literature.

Orhan Kemal had been pouring his heart into verse. Nazım, already a towering figure in poetry, would have none of it. One day, the older poet picked up the beginning of one of Orhan's short stories. After reading just the opening, he gave his cellmate a piece of advice that would echo through the decades: abandon poetry entirely and devote yourself to prose.

Orhan hesitated. "Story is a subject foreign to me," he protested. But Nazım's response was swift and prophetic. "Better," he said, "you'll find your own unique form without being influenced by anyone."

That single exchange, preserved in Orhan Kemal's memoir about their three and a half years together, turned a hesitant young man into a master storyteller. Every page of his celebrated works carries the ghost of that harsh critique in a prison ward.

What makes the moment even more remarkable is the setting. These two literary giants weren't in a classroom or a literary salon. They were cellmates, sharing the confined quarters of Bursa Prison in the early 1940s. Nazım Hikmet, a man known for respecting everyone and their ideas, rarely entered arguments unless forced. Yet when it came to Orhan's poetry, he held nothing back.

The mentorship took many forms, not all of them gentle. On the prison grounds, the inmates played football, and Nazım insisted on joining the game. He crossed over to the opposing team, where Orhan and his teammates easily dribbled past him. The great poet, frustrated, would flip his grey cap backwards, rearrange his players, and bark orders at his own teammates. When he conceded goals, his face turned crimson, his blue eyes blazed, and his yellow eyebrows furrowed in fury.

Nazım, unable to match his literary prowess on the pitch, resorted to fouling. He grabbed, elbowed, and kicked his opponents. Orhan Kemal himself received one of those kicks, and later wrote about it in his memoir *Nazım Hikmet'le 3,5 Yıl* with a wink: "One day I took a very solid kick from him, and between us, it was a very exquisite kick."

The football matches, the harsh critiques, and the unlikely friendship all unfolded within the walls of Bursa Prison. It's a reminder that sometimes the most transformative moments of our lives arrive disguised as harsh words or even a well-aimed kick. For Orhan Kemal, the advice to abandon poetry was the push he needed to find his true voice.

## The Foul King of Bursa Prison: Nazım Hikmet on the Pitch

In 1943, inside the walls of Bursa Prison, the poet Nazım Hikmet traded his pen for a football and discovered he was no artist with a ball at his feet. While his poetry soared, his performance on the prison pitch was, by all accounts, a glorious disaster. The man who could command language could not command a simple dribble, and his reaction became the stuff of prison legend.

The games happened in the prison garden, a rare slice of freedom for the men doing time there. Nazım Hikmet, who shared his ward with fellow writer Orhan Kemal, insisted on joining one particular match. He didn't just play; he deliberately chose to line up on the opposing team, facing his cellmate across the grass. The result was pure comedy. Players found him easy to slip past, and they did so relentlessly, baiting him with every feint. The poet, so measured with words, had no such patience with football.

His frustration was physical and immediate. He would spin his lead-gray cap backwards, a signal that he meant business. He would rearrange his teammates, shouting orders that carried across the garden. And when the ball found the back of his net, his face would flush crimson, his blue eyes blazing beneath those yellow eyebrows. The transformation was startling. Once provoked, the great poet became the "foul king," lashing out with hands, arms, and the occasional kick aimed at whoever had embarrassed him.

Orhan Kemal, his fellow inmate and friend, bore the brunt of this fury. In his memoir *Nazım Hikmet'le 3,5 Yıl*, Orhan Kemal recalled the moment with dry humor: "One day I caught a proper kick from him, and between us, it was a very exquisite kick." The phrase has been quoted ever since, a perfect snapshot of a genius humbled by the beautiful game.

As for the matches themselves, the head guard reportedly sometimes halted them, claiming the ball flying over the wall might be used for drug smuggling. Whether that suspicion was real or just an excuse remains unclear, but the games themselves were real enough. And on that pitch, Nazım Hikmet was no poet. He was just a man, furious and foul-prone, chasing a ball he could never quite catch.

## The Exquisite Kick: Orhan Kemal's Memoir of the Match

Orhan Kemal took one of Nazım Hikmet's hardest kicks during a prison football game, and he wrote about it with such affection that the moment became immortal. The writer, who shared a ward with the poet at Bursa Prison in 1943, recorded the incident in his memoir *Nazım Hikmet'le 3,5 Yıl*. His exact words: "bir gün esaslı bir tekmesini yemiştim, hani laf aramızda çok nefis bir tekmeydi..." which translates to "one day I took one of his solid kicks, and between us, it was a very exquisite kick..."

That phrasing tells you everything about the strange friendship between these two literary giants. Nazım Hikmet, already Turkey's most celebrated poet, had taken the younger writer under his wing. He read Orhan Kemal's poems and dismissed them without mercy, calling them "disaster" and "terrible." But one day he read the opening of a story Orhan Kemal had written and gave him advice that would change Turkish literature forever: stop writing poetry, switch to prose. When Orhan Kemal protested that stories were unfamiliar territory, Nazım insisted that was exactly why he should try it, since he would find his own voice without being influenced by anyone.

On the football pitch, though, the poet's patience evaporated completely. Nazım Hikmet was not the graceful master on grass that he was on paper. His opponents, including Orhan Kemal, dribbled past him easily and drove him to distraction. He would flip his gray cap backward, rearrange his teammates, and shout at them constantly. When his team conceded goals, his face turned crimson beneath his blue eyes and yellow brows. And when someone dared to slip past him, he transformed into the foul king of the prison yard, grabbing, shoving, and kicking his way through the game.

The guard's suspicions about the football itself add another layer to the story. As the tale goes, the head guard of Bursa Prison would occasionally stop the games, claiming that the ball flying over the garden wall and coming back could be a cover for drug smuggling. This detail remains unconfirmed, but it fits the absurd reality of prison life. On the day they finally got the ball back and organized a match, Nazım insisted on playing, and Orhan Kemal found himself on the opposing team.

The memoir's kick became a symbol of their bond, a moment of raw physical comedy between two men who would each reshape Turkish literature. For all his genius on the page, Nazım Hikmet's prison football legacy lives on through that single exquisite kick, delivered to a friend who knew exactly how to tell the story. The legend survives because Orhan Kemal chose laughter over resentment, turning a painful blow into one of the most quoted lines in Turkish literary memoirs.


## Frequently asked questions

**What happened during the prison football match between Nazım Hikmet and Orhan Kemal?**

In 1943 at Bursa Prison, the poet Nazım Hikmet and the future novelist Orhan Kemal faced each other on opposing teams in a garden football match. Nazım was easily dribbled past by his opponents, which frustrated him so much that he became a foul machine, including landing a memorable kick on Orhan Kemal himself.

**Why did Nazım Hikmet advise Orhan Kemal to switch from poetry to prose?**

After reading the opening of one of Orhan Kemal's stories, Nazım Hikmet told him in 1943 that poetry was not his strength and that he should move to prose. When Orhan protested that storytelling felt unfamiliar, Nazım replied that this was actually an advantage, since Orhan would develop his own unique style without being influenced by anyone else.

**What did Orhan Kemal write about Nazım Hikmet's kick in his memoir?**

In his memoir "Nazım Hikmet'le 3,5 Yıl" (Three and a Half Years with Nazım Hikmet), Orhan Kemal described receiving what he called a "very exquisite kick" from Nazım during a prison football match. The phrase has become a beloved anecdote among readers of Turkish literature, capturing the playful tension between the two friends.

**Did the prison guards allow football matches in Bursa Prison?**

Yes, matches were regularly played in the prison garden in 1943. According to the story, the head guard sometimes stopped the games, reportedly suspecting that when the ball went over the wall and came back, it was being used to smuggle drugs. This detail has not been confirmed by reliable sources, but it remains part of the tale. The Nazım Hikmet prison football story lives on because it shows a side of the great poet that textbooks rarely capture. Here was a man who could write some of the most tender lines in Turkish poetry, yet on a dusty prison pitch he turned into a red-faced, furious competitor. His blue eyes blazed, his yellow eyebrows knit together, and his grey cap turned backwards as he shouted at teammates and hacked at opponents. Editorial note: Any facts which remain unconfirmed are presented as such, hedged appropriately for clarity.

Canonical: https://curio.madeda.com/nazm-hikmet-s-prison-football-fouls-in-1943/