The paper directs to introduce the turkish literary tradition to an fairly unknown european audience, as well as to present a turkish poet called Orhan Veli. Since there is hardly any literature written within this subject in either swedish or english I have come to the conclusion that the europeans have not yet been subjected to a discussion of this nature. For this reason my main task has been to gather and compose all that has already been written within this matter. I have chosen not to dig deep into such an unexploared subject, but rather offer different types of entries with which further research can be pursued and built upon.

The early literature in Turkey consisted mostly of imitations of the well established arabic- and persian traditions. Because of that the turkisk modernism came, in comparison to the rest of Europe, relatively late. The quest for their own and original style first came with the modernists. For this reason I’ve chosen to stress turkish modernism and since Orhan Veli is given credit for it, his poetry. The modernistic breakthrough is explained through the poetic diction of Orhan Veli and the remaning members of a literary group called Garip. The reading of Velis poetry will be historically contextualized. Not only will his poetry be read in the light of his native literature history but also in comparison to other poets of his time.