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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=468498" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Autobiography</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I was born in 1902<br>I never once went back to my birthplace<br>I don't like to turn back<br>at three I served as a pasha's grandson in Aleppo<br>at nineteen as a student at Moscow Communist University<br>at forty-nine I was back in Moscow as the Tcheka Party's guest<br>and I've been a poet since I was fourteen<br>some people know all about plants some about fish<br>   I know separation<br>some people know the names of the stars by heart<br>   I recite absences<br>I've slept in prisons and in grand hotels<br>I've known hunger even a hunger strike and there's almost no food<br> I haven't tasted<br>at thirty they wanted to hang me<br>at forty-eight to give me the Peace Prize<br>   which they did<br>at thirty-six I covered four square meters of concrete in half a year<br>at fifty-nine I flew from Prague to Havana in eighteen hours<br>I never saw Lenin I stood watch at his coffin in '24<br>in '61 the tomb I visit is his books<br>they tried to tear me away from my party<br>   it didn't work<br>nor was I crushed under the falling idols<br>in '51 I sailed with a young friend into the teeth of death<br>in '52 I spent four months flat on my back with a broken heart<br> waiting to die<br>I was jealous of the women I loved<br>I didn't envy Charlie Chaplin one bit<br>I deceived my women<br>I never talked my friends' backs<br>I drank but not every day<br>I earned my bread money honestly what happiness<br>out of embarrassment for others I lied<br>I lied so as not to hurt someone else<br>  but I also lied for no reason at all<br>I've ridden in trains planes and cars<br>most people don't get the chance<br>I went to opera<br> most people haven't even heard of the opera<br>and since '21 I haven't gone to the places most people visit<br> mosques churches temples synagogues sorcerers<br> but I've had my coffee grounds read<br>my writings are published in thirty or forty languages<br> in my Turkey in my Turkish they're banned<br>cancer hasn't caught up with me yet<br>and nothing says it will<br>I'll never be a prime minister or anything like that<br>and I wouldn't want such a life<br>nor did I go to war<br>or burrow in bomb shelters in the bottom of the night<br>and I never had to take to the road under diving planes<br>but I fell in love at almost sixty<br>in short comrades<br>even if today in Berlin I'm croaking of grief<br>  I can say I've lived like a human being<br>and who knows<br> how much longer I'll live<br> what else will happen to me</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> <br> This autobiography was written <br> in east Berlin on 11 September 1961 </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Nazim+Hikmet">Nazim Hikmet</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=468498" data-title="Autobiography de Nazim Hikmet" data-description="I was born in 1902
I never once went back to my birthplace
I don't like to turn back
at three I served as a pasha's grandson in Aleppo
at nineteen as a student at Moscow Communist University
at forty-nine I was back in Moscow as the Tcheka Party's..."></div>
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