Taylan ABİÇ

Existentialism is a philosophical movement which emerged in France in the midtwentieth century and became popular in many countries. It has been revealed that existentialism offered by atheist existentialist authors, such as Albert Camus, Franz Kafka, Simone de Beauvoir and J. P. Sartre in particular, is also popular in the Turkish Literature and is represented by the authors, such as Demir Özlü, Ferit Edgü, Leyla Erbil, Tezer Özlü. Existentialism in Turkish Literature has been introduced by giving general information about the works of those authors. By emphasizing that the mentioned movement, stepping up on classical sense of novel through the new novel technique, is nested with modernism in the Turkish Literature, its philosophical basis has been questioned. It has been deduced that philosophical production is lacking in Turkey and philosophical movements are performed generally by men of letters/artists. By making a literature review related to Tezer Özlü before the research, a chance has been found to evaluate from many different perspectives. By dividing the examination into sub-titles, such as ‗What is existentialism?‘, ‗What are the effects of existentialism in the Turkish Literature and who are its important representatives?‘, ‗Existentialist discourse‘ and ‗Existentialist discourse in the novel Cold Nights of Childhood by Tezer Özlü, analysis has been enabled to gain depth. By evaluating the prominent elements in those analyses, it has been concluded that Albert Camus and Cesare Pavese have effects on the works of Tezer Özlü. The similarity especially in the texts related to death of characters in the works of Pavese has not escaped from the attention. It has been determined that she has been largely affected by the work The Wrong Side and the Right Side by Albert Camus. As a result of text reading within the framework of existentialist discourse with the quotations from the novel, it has been observed that existentialist discourse has effect on the novel Cold Nights of Childhood by Tezer Özlü.

Keywords: Existentialism, Turkish Litterature, Tezer Özlü, Existentialist Novel, Discourse