Bodrum and the Fisherman of Halikarnassus

Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı who used the pen name exclusively in his writings, "The Fisherman of Halikarnassus” was a Turkish writer of novels, short-stories and essays, as well as being a keen ethnographer and travelogue.

He is deeply associated with Bodrum where he started to live as of 1927 by reason of a sentence of three-years' exile and, fallen under the spell of the town, ended up by spending the remaining part of his life as based there, whence his pen-name in reference to Halicarnassus, name of the city in antiquity. He is largely credited for bringing the formerly sleepy fishing and sponge-diving town of Bodrum, as well as the entire shoreline of the Blue Cruise, to the attention of the Turkish intellectuals and the reading public first, and by extension, for paving the way towards the formation of international tourist attraction the region became.