Playwright (b. 1905, Edirne - d. 15
March 1971, İstanbul). He attended Eyüp Secondary School and Istanbul High
School. He worked as a redactor and clerk at the National Assembly Publishing
House in Ankara, where he came to live during the first years of the National
Struggle. Returning to İstanbul following the Independence War, Başkut worked
for journals such as Vakit, Son Posta
and Cumhuriyet from 1928. When he gave up journalism, he was working for the newspaper
Cumhuriyet as the head of the
editorial department (1963).
He began writing plays after 1942. His
best-known plays are Paydos (Break
Time, 1948), in which he criticizes the unsound human relationships emerging
during the economic crisis after the Second World War from the aspect of
morality, and Buzlar Çözülmeden
(Before the Ice Melts, 1964), in which he narrates a wonderful regime
established by a mad governor in a town which loses contact with the outside
world during a long-lasting winter. These two plays were staged many times and
were also adapted for the cinema. He collected the İnönü Award with his play Küçük Şehir (The Little City, 1948).
WORKS:
INTERVIEW: Geceleri Bizi Kimler Bekliyor (Who Waits for Us in the Nights,
1933).
PLAY (by the dates and the theatre
seasons they were staged: Büyük Şehir (The
Big City, 1942 - 43), Ayarsızlar (The
Unregulated, 1943 - 44), Hacı Kaptan
(The Pilgrim Captain, 1944 - 45), Küçük
Şehir (The Little City, 1945-46), Koca
Bebek (Big Baby, 1946-47), Paydos
(Break Time, 1948-49), Sana Rey Veriyorum
(I Cast My Vote for You, 1950-51), Soygun
(Robbery, 1951-52), Kadıköy İskelesi (Kadıköy
Pier, 1952-53), Makine (The Machine,
1953-54), Harput'ta Bir Amerikalı (An
American in Harput, 1955-56), Kleopatra'nın
Mezarı (Cleopatra’s Tomb, 1956-57), Tablodaki
Adam (The Man on the Table, 1958-59), Öbür
Gelişte (In the Other Time, 1960), Hacıyatmaz
(Tumbler, 1960), Göç (Migration,
1962), Buzlar Çözülmeden (Before the
Ice Melts, 1964), Hepimiz Birimiz İçin (All
for One, 1965), Üzüntüyü Bırak (Stop
Feeling Sad, 1965), Ayna (The Mirror,
1966), Emekli (Retired, 1967), Ölen Hangisi? (Which One Died? 1967), Dostlar (Good Friends, 1970).
NOVEL: Kadın Bir Defa Sever (Women
Love Only Once), Dişi Arslan (The Female Lion), Valde Sultanın Gerdanlığı (The Necklace
of the Sultan’s Mother, detective story, 1954).
