Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı (17 April 1890 – 13 October 1973; born Musa Cevat Şakir; pen-name "The Fisherman of Halicarnassus", ) was a Cretan Turkish writer of novels, short-stories and essays, as well as a keen ethnographer and travel writer.

Early life

Şakir was born in 1890 to the Kabaağaclı family. He was the brother of artists Fahrelnissa Zeid and Aliye Berger, and grew up on Büyükada in İstanbul. His father, Mehmed Şakir Pasha, was an impoverished military officer who arranged for his son to study at Oxford University. Cevat dropped out and during his voyage back to Turkey married an Italian woman named Anise. In 1914 he fatally shot his father after an argument on their family farm. Cevat said that they were arguing about his wife. He was sentenced to 14 years in jail, but was released after a general amnesty. Following a political offense in 1925, he was exiled for three years to Bodrum and settled there.

Career

After completing his sentence in Istanbul, he returned to Bodrum where he lived for 25 years, adopting his pen name in homage to Halicarnassus, Bodrum's name in antiquity. He is credited with bringing the fishing and sponge-diving town to the attention of the Turkish intelligentsia and then to the reading public, thereby starting its journey to become a major international tourist attraction. He is credited with inventing the Blue Cruise that has become a feature of Southern Aegean and Mediterranean tourism. One of his poems about Bodrum is shown on a sign in the city: ''When you reach the hill, you will see Bodrum. Don't think you'll leave as you came. Others before you thought the same, as they departed they left their soul behind in Bodrum.'' In 1950, he took a minor role in a movie, under the screen name Cevat Şakir Kabaağaç. An erudite and colourful man, Şakir had a great impact on the evolution of intellectual ideas in Turkey during the 20th century. He was an early environmentalist and many trees that he planted in Bodrum still survive there.

Tributes

On April 17, 2015, Google celebrated his birthday with a Google Doodle. The story of the Fisherman of Halicarnassus is featured in his niece Shirin Devrim's 1994 book, A Turkish Tapestry: The Shakirs of Istanbul.

Works

Short stories

Novels

Essays

Footnotes