Nihat Akkaraca

Remembered as "the Sage of Datça", Nihat Akkaraca was the researcher and writer who committed to paper the peninsula's largely oral local history, its human stories and its culture. His book "Datça'da Zaman" (Time in Datça) became one of the essential sources gathering Datça's memory into a single text. He died in 2009; to keep his memory alive, the "Nihat Akkaraca Story Award", organised by Datça Municipality and Kanguru Publications, brought storytellers together nationwide for many years.

The memory of an isolated peninsula is easily lost; thanks to Akkaraca's labour, Datça's was not. He became the bridge tying local knowledge to national literature, and through the story award given in his name he left an example of how a local historian's legacy can turn into literature.