Roni Margulies (May 5, 1955 – July 19, 2023) was a Turkish poet, author, translator, and political activist.

Early life

Margulies was born in Istanbul to a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

family. His maternal grandparents were

Sephardic Jews Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

from

İzmir İzmir is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara. It is on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast of Anatolia, and is the capital of İzmir Province. In 2024, the city of İzmir had ...

and his paternal grandparents were

Ashkenazi Jews Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium CE. They traditionally speak Yiddish, a language ...

from

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

who settled in Turkey in 1925.About Roni Margulies
/ref> Margulies attended the English-medium

Robert College The American Robert College of Istanbul ( or ), often abbreviated as Robert or RC, is a Selective school, highly selective, Independent school, independent, mixed-sex education, co-educational, Education in Turkey#Private schools, private Second ...

and moved to London in 1972 to study Economics. He moved to London in 1972 and settled there, before eventually moving back to Istanbul towards the end of his life, following increasingly long stints spent in that city.

Literary career

Margulies started writing poetry in 1991 and won the prestigious Yunus Nadi Poetry Award in 2002 with his book of poems, ''Saat Fark'' (Time Difference). He published selected translations of the poetry of

Ted Hughes Edward James Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He wa ...

Philip Larkin Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, '' The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, '' Jill'' (1946) and '' A Girl in Winter'' (194 ...

and

Yehuda Amichai Yehuda Amichai (; born Ludwig Pfeuffer 3 May 1924 – 22 September 2000) was an Israelis, Israeli poet and author, one of the first to write in colloquial Hebrew language, Hebrew in modern times. Yehuda Amichai, the poet of everyday life, love, ...

in Turkish, as well as Hughes’ '' Birthday Letters''.

Political activism

Margulies was a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party (DSİP) and translated

Tony Cliff Tony Cliff (born Yigael Glückstein, ; 20 May 1917 – 9 April 2000) was a Trotskyist activist. Born to a Jewish family in Ottoman Palestine, he moved to Britain in 1947 and by the end of the 1950s had assumed the pen name of Tony Cliff. A fo ...

’s ''State Capitalism in Russia'' into Turkish. Margulies was also a member of the

Trotskyist Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...

Socialist Workers Party in the UK, a sister organisation of DSIP, and was active in both Turkish and British political discourse https://socialistworker.co.uk/obituaries/roni-margulies-1955-2023/

Personal life

Roni grew up with the Turkish intellectual and cultural historian of Islam

İrvin Cemil Schick İrvin Cemil Schick (born 1955) is a Turkish intellectual and cultural historian of Islam with a focus on the early modern Ottoman Empire. Biography İrvin holds a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and ...

and they remained lifelong friends until Roni's death.

References

External links

Roni Margulies Internet Archive
at Marxists.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Margulies, Roni 1955 births Turkish poets Turkish translators Writers from Istanbul Socialist Workers Party (UK) members Turkish Ashkenazi Jews Turkish expatriates in England Turkish Sephardi Jews Turkish people of Polish-Jewish descent 2023 deaths