Cemal Süreya, known by his given name as Cemalettin Seber (1931, Erzincan â 9 January 1990, Istanbul), was a Kurdish-Zaza, Alevi poet, writer, and translator. He was one of the pioneering poets of the ðkinci Yeni (Second New Poetry) movement, a modernist movement in Turkish poetry. Although he made his first attempts at poetry with sketches in middle school and aruz in high school, his true poetic work began during his university years. In addition to his poetry collections; ÃÂvercinka (1958), Göçebe (1965), Beni ÃÂp Sonra DoÃÂur Beni (1973), Uçurumda Açan (1984), Sñcak Nal (1988), Güz Bitigi (1988), and Sevda Sözleri (1990); he also wrote essays, critiques, diaries, and anthologies.
The most frequent themes in his works are love, women, loneliness, social and political criticism, death, the idea of God, portraits, and poetics in verse. He also translated nearly forty books from French into Turkish. With the exception of Onüç Günün Mektuplarñ (1990), all of his articles and poems were first published in magazines and newspapers and then turned into books. Süreya, who held a socialist worldview, published the magazine Papirüs, in which he expressed his literary views and used it as a tool to express his ideas as an intellectual.
Cemal Süreya, whose real name was Cemalettin Seber, was born in Pülümür, Erzincan (now in Tunceli Province) in 1931. His exact birthday is unknown. He was born into a half-Kurdish, half-Zaza, Alevi-faith family that migrated from Pülümür to Erzincan. His father, Hüseyin Seber, who was born in Erzincan in 1905 and worked in the transportation business, was a Kurd. His mother, Güllü Hanñm, known as "Gülbeyaz" and born in Karatuà  in 1915, was a Zaza. His father, Hüseyin Bey, died in a traffic accident in 1957 and his mother, Güllü Hanñm, died at the age of twenty-three due to bleeding following a miscarriage.
At age seven, Cemal Süreya and his family were among 181 families forcibly deported from Dersim (Tunceli) to Bilecik in 1938. He later described the experience in his poem '1938 Sürgün à Âiiri'.
He graduated from the Political Sciences Faculty of Ankara University. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of the Papirüs literary magazine. Cemal Süreya is a notable member of the Second New Generation of Turkish poetry, an abstract and postmodern movement created as a backlash against the more popular-based Garip movement. Love, mainly through its erotic character, is a popular theme of Süreya's works. Süreya's poems and articles were published in magazines such as Yeditepe, Yazko, Pazar Postasñ, Yeni Ulus, Oluà Âum, Türkiye Yazñlarñ, Politika, Aydñnlñk, and Somut. He is known to have been a primary influence on the poetry of Sunay Akñn. He lost a letter "y" from his pen name â originally Süreyya â because of a lost bet with Turkish poet Sezai Karakoç.