What do you think?
Rate this book
The Tales of Nasrettin Hoca
Wonderful tales of the legendary, wise folk character Nasrettin Hoca. Stories retold in English by the most renowned expert in Turkish literature in the US, translated from versions of one of Turkey's most famous writers. Beautifully illustrated. Full of wisdom and humor.
112 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2002
About the author
Aziz Nesin
376 books952 followersAziz Nesin was a Turkish humorist and author of more than 100 books.
Nesin was born in 1915 on Heybeliada, one of the Princes' Islands of Istanbul, in the days of the Ottoman Empire. After serving as a career officer for several years, he became the editor of a series of satirical periodicals with a socialist slant. He was jailed several times and placed under surveillance by the National Security Service (MAH in Turkish) for his political views. Among the incriminating pieces of evidence they found against him during his military service was his theft and sale for 35 Lira of two goats intended for his company—a violation of clause 131/2 of the Military Penal Code. One 98-year-old former MAH officer named Neşet Güriş alleged that Nesin was in fact a MAH member, but this has been disputed
Nesin provided a strong indictment of the oppression and brutalization of the common man. He satirized bureaucracy and exposed economic inequities in stories that effectively combine local color and universal truths. Aziz Nesin has been presented with numerous awards in Turkey, Italy, Bulgaria and the former Soviet Union. His works have been translated into over thirty languages. During latter parts of his life he was said to be the only Turkish author who made a living only out of his earnings from his books.
On 6 June 1956, he married a coworker from the Akbaba magazine, Meral Çelen.
In 1972, he founded the Nesin Foundation. The purpose of the Nesin Foundation is to take, each year, four poor and destitute children into the Foundation's home and provide every necessity - shelter, education and training, starting from elementary school - until they complete high school, a trade school, or until they acquire a vocation. Aziz Nesin has donated, gratis, to the Nesin Foundation his copyrights in their entirety for all his works in Turkey or other countries, including all of his published books, all plays to be staged, all copyrights for films, and all his works performed or used in radio or television.
Aziz Nesin was a political activist. After the 1980 military coup led by Kenan Evren, the intelligentsia was oppressed. Aziz Nesin led a number of intellectuals to take a stand against the military government, by issuing the Petition of Intellectuals (Turkish: Aydınlar Dilekçesi).
He championed free speech, especially the right to criticize Islam without compromise. In early 1990s he started a translation of Salman Rushdie's controversial novel, The Satanic Verses. This made him a target for radical Islamist organizations, who were gaining popularity throughout Turkey. On July 2, 1993 while attending a mostly Alevi cultural festival in the central Anatolian city of Sivas a mob organized by radical Islamists gathered around the Madimak Hotel, where the festival attendants were accommodated, calling for Sharia and death to infidels. After hours of siege, the mob set the hotel on fire. After flames engulfed several lower floors of the hotel, firetrucks managed to get close, and Aziz Nesin and many guests of the hotel escaped. However, 37 people were killed. This event, also known as the Sivas massacre, was seen as a major assault on free speech and human rights in Turkey, and it deepened the rift between religious- and secular-minded people.
He devoted his last years to fighting ignorance and religious fundamentalism.
Aziz Nesin died on July 6 1995 due to a heart attack, after a book signing event in Çeşme, İzmir. After his death, his body was buried in an unknown location in the land of Nesin Foundation without any ceremony, as suggested by his will.
Nesin was born in 1915 on Heybeliada, one of the Princes' Islands of Istanbul, in the days of the Ottoman Empire. After serving as a career officer for several years, he became the editor of a series of satirical periodicals with a socialist slant. He was jailed several times and placed under surveillance by the National Security Service (MAH in Turkish) for his political views. Among the incriminating pieces of evidence they found against him during his military service was his theft and sale for 35 Lira of two goats intended for his company—a violation of clause 131/2 of the Military Penal Code. One 98-year-old former MAH officer named Neşet Güriş alleged that Nesin was in fact a MAH member, but this has been disputed
Nesin provided a strong indictment of the oppression and brutalization of the common man. He satirized bureaucracy and exposed economic inequities in stories that effectively combine local color and universal truths. Aziz Nesin has been presented with numerous awards in Turkey, Italy, Bulgaria and the former Soviet Union. His works have been translated into over thirty languages. During latter parts of his life he was said to be the only Turkish author who made a living only out of his earnings from his books.
On 6 June 1956, he married a coworker from the Akbaba magazine, Meral Çelen.
In 1972, he founded the Nesin Foundation. The purpose of the Nesin Foundation is to take, each year, four poor and destitute children into the Foundation's home and provide every necessity - shelter, education and training, starting from elementary school - until they complete high school, a trade school, or until they acquire a vocation. Aziz Nesin has donated, gratis, to the Nesin Foundation his copyrights in their entirety for all his works in Turkey or other countries, including all of his published books, all plays to be staged, all copyrights for films, and all his works performed or used in radio or television.
Aziz Nesin was a political activist. After the 1980 military coup led by Kenan Evren, the intelligentsia was oppressed. Aziz Nesin led a number of intellectuals to take a stand against the military government, by issuing the Petition of Intellectuals (Turkish: Aydınlar Dilekçesi).
He championed free speech, especially the right to criticize Islam without compromise. In early 1990s he started a translation of Salman Rushdie's controversial novel, The Satanic Verses. This made him a target for radical Islamist organizations, who were gaining popularity throughout Turkey. On July 2, 1993 while attending a mostly Alevi cultural festival in the central Anatolian city of Sivas a mob organized by radical Islamists gathered around the Madimak Hotel, where the festival attendants were accommodated, calling for Sharia and death to infidels. After hours of siege, the mob set the hotel on fire. After flames engulfed several lower floors of the hotel, firetrucks managed to get close, and Aziz Nesin and many guests of the hotel escaped. However, 37 people were killed. This event, also known as the Sivas massacre, was seen as a major assault on free speech and human rights in Turkey, and it deepened the rift between religious- and secular-minded people.
He devoted his last years to fighting ignorance and religious fundamentalism.
Aziz Nesin died on July 6 1995 due to a heart attack, after a book signing event in Çeşme, İzmir. After his death, his body was buried in an unknown location in the land of Nesin Foundation without any ceremony, as suggested by his will.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 12, 2013
Some people say that, whilst uttering what seemed madness, he was, in reality, divinely inspired, and that it was not madness but wisdom that he uttered.
—The Turkish Jester or The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi
A visit earlier in the year to Konya - in the middle of Anatolya, a center of Sufism and very close to Aksehir, the birthplace of Nasreddin - gave me a chance to get reacquainted with one of my childhood heroes. I bought a collection of his anecdotes and pranks as a gift for a friend who is just starting to learn the English language, but I ended up reading and re-reading the book for my own enjoyment. The short format of the tales (most of them have just one or two paragraphs and an epigram) is well suited to children, students and beginners in a foreign language, but the actual content of the stories is timeless and age indifferent, encapsulating the wisdom and the oral traditions of a vibrant and fascinating culture.
Nastratin Hogea, as he is known in Romania through the writings of XIX Century ethnographer, poet, musician, chronicler Anton Pann, has in fact transceded both the historical and the geographical bounds of his origins. There are thousands of stories attributed to him that can be traced to both before and after the 13 century Selguc Sultanate, and they are popular far beyond the borders of Turkey, from North Africa and the Balkans in the West to China and Turkmenistan in the East.
One of the reasons of his popularity is his humble and pacifist atitude, a much closer to reality image of the Muslim commoner than the modern portrait of the bloodthirsty religious madman. Nasreddin is an inexhaustible fount of wit, common sense, ingenuity, peasant cunning and tolerance. He is obviously not the traditional hero type, as more often than not he is trying to cheat his neighbours, is lying through his teeth whenever it suits him, is vengeful, tight-fisted and mean to his wife. But he is also able to see the funny side in every misfortune than befalls him, is ready to settle disputes without violence and is standing up against tyrants (Tamerlane in particular), corrupt judges, state officials or religious leaders. The children make fun of him every chance they get, but to the elders of his village he is Teacher, Sheikh, Imam. Satire, ridicule, laughter are powerful weapons against fools, authocrats and misfortune - as effective today as they were seven centuries ago.
The new Nasreddin Hodja stories that emerge and the old ones that are adapted prove that these stories are immortal. On the other hand, it is stated that since these stories, products of the imagination of common people, are adaptable it is natural that they are updated in each generation and that is why Nasreddin Hodja is still the most popular story character in Turkey. In other words, as light attracts moths, Nasreddin Hodja character attracts new stories.
A google search may unearth some of these stories for your enjoyment. I selected a couple here, hoping to better illustrate their charm and their subversive nature. Gutenberg hosts an older English translation than my edition : The Turkish Jester by George Henry Borrow. For Romanian readers, I recommend the Anton Pann selection I mentioned earlier.
The most celebrated image of Nasreddin shows him riding a donkey backwards:
One day when Hodja was going to the mosque with his mullahs, he decided to ride on his donkey backwards. The mullahs asked, "Why are you riding on the donkey backwards? You must be very uncomfortable."
He answered, " If I sat facing forward, you would be behind me. If you went in front of me, I would be behind you. Either way I would not be facing you. So, this is the most logical way!"
---
They asked Hodja: "Sir, in the morning some people go this way and some go the opposite way. Why?"
Hodja answered: "If they all went in the same direction, the Earth would lose its balance and topple."
---
Nasreddin was walking in the bazaar with a large group of followers. Whatever Nasreddin did, his followers immediately copied. Every few steps Nasreddin would stop and shake his hands in the air, touch his feet and jump up yelling "Hu Hu Hu!". So his followers would also stop and do exactly the same thing. One of the merchants, who knew Nasreddin, quietly asked him: "What are you doing my old friend? Why are these people imitating you?" "I have become a Sufi Sheikh," replied Nasreddin. "These are my Murids (spiritual seekers); I am helping them reach enlightenment!" "How do you know when they reach enlightenment?" "That’s the easy part! Every morning I count them. The ones who have left – have reached enlightenment!"
---
Cogia Efendi one day went into a garden, pulled up some carrots and turnips and other kinds of vegetables, which he found, putting some into a sack and some into his bosom; suddenly the gardener coming up, laid hold of him, and said, 'What are you seeking here?' The Cogia, being in great consternation, not finding any other reply, answered, 'For some days past a great wind has been blowing, and that wind blew me hither.' 'But who pulled up these vegetables?' said the gardener. 'As the wind blew very violently,' replied the Cogia, 'it cast me here and there, and whatever I laid hold of in the hope of saving myself remained in my hands.' 'Ah,' said the gardener, 'but who filled the sack with them?' 'Well,' said the Cogia, 'that is the very question I was about to ask myself when you came up.'
---
One day the Cogia was asked, 'When there is a new moon, what becomes of the old one?'
'They make forty stars out of each,' said the Cogia.
---
March 30, 2015
This book opens me up to the humorous side of West Asian people (especially; considering that the influence of this type of humor are very widespread), showing the deeper root of Islam in social life and its outstanding impact intellectual-wise.
Maybe this is also because of the selection of this edition itself, which gives that impact. Each of the story of Hoca was selected by the editor to drive its social aspect.
Maybe this is also because of the selection of this edition itself, which gives that impact. Each of the story of Hoca was selected by the editor to drive its social aspect.
December 7, 2011
Some of the stories are a bit more sparse than other versions I've read or heard, but they still provide a great introduction. And I read plenty I've never heard before. This is a great collection for anyone interested in Hoca/Hodja/Hoja/Goha tales, and would make a good addition to any storyteller's collection.
October 29, 2016
اولین ترجمه از طنز عزیز نسین را در دوران اول دبیرستان دیدم و پس از آن همیشه از خواندن او لذت برده ام. زبان و فرهنگ ترک ها، در همه جای منطقه سرشار از طنز است، حتی اگر شخصیتی به نام ملانصرالدین، حقیقی هم نباشد، با این همه می توان حدس زد که وجودش چندان غیرواقعی نیست. طنز عزیز نسین، گاه به اندازه ی تیغی تیز، برنده و زخم آور است.
December 28, 2021
Found this at my boyfriend’s parents’ house. Like Amelia Bedelia but for young Turkish children. Lol-ed a couple times.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews