Yashar Kemal (1922-2015) was born into a Kurdish family in a
village in southern Anatolia and saw his father brutally murdered
at the age of five, which left him with a severe stutter for years
to come. He received his basic education in village schools before
working as a farmer, factory worker, public letter-writer, and
journalist. Memed, My Hawk, his first novel, was published in 1955
and won the Varlik Prize for best novel of the year. Kemal's
numerous other books include The Wind from the Plain trilogy,
Salman the Solitary, Seagull, and four books recounting the
exploits of Memed, including, Memed, My Hawk and They Burn the
Thistles.
Edouard Roditi (1910-1992) was born in France. He was an author of
poetry and stories, as well as a translator of writings originating
in French, German, Spanish, and Turkish.
"Some books are so famous they need no introduction. But have you
ever read Yashar Kemal? His first novel, Memed, My Hawk (NYRB
Classics), set in the south-east of Turkey and about a young man at
war with feudal authority, was published in the 1950s and brought
him international fame. It is still greatly loved in Turkey, and
with good reason." --The Guardian
“Yashar Kemal is one of those writers who is content with the patch
of earth allotted by birth. As in the case of Faulkner, Akhmatova,
or even Joyce, all the events described circle around the site of
an early injury. These writers evoke landscapes containing people
who, however lost they may be in their marginal existences, fix
their gaze upon the center of the world and take up residence
there. [Kemal is driven to] write against the age and to tell those
stories that have not been elevated to the status of affairs of
state because they deal with people who never sat on high, who did
not dominate but rather were themselves dominated.”—Günter
Grass
“Yashar Kemal is a thousand kilometres tall and can make a story of
two stones tender and spellbinding. A master.”—John Berger
“A beautiful and passionate book . . . in the tradition which gave
us Dr Zhivago and The Leopard.” —Glasgow Herald
“A tale that assumes epic proportions and gathers speed to rush to
a spectacular climax.” -- Daily Telegraph
"A beautiful novel in the old, glorious tradition of heroic
storytelling." —Scotsman
"Follows in that tradition of strong, simple novels about the life
of the peasantry. It has that insider's feeling for man, the
oppressed, labouring animal . . . you might find in Tolstoy, Hardy
or Silone. The author never loses his freshness, an ability to pick
on details as though seen for the first time." —Guardian
"Yashar Kemal achieves the Russian quality — an intimacy of detail
which makes his etching indelible, more selected, and therefore
more obvious than life . . . The book is a small, sharp, moving
epic of the Turkish soil." —Sunday Telegraph
"A masterpiece." —Robert Carver, New Statesman
“A remarkable novel, reminiscent of Hardy in its power and scope.”
—Queen
“The sense of heroism, the animal tenderness, the marvelous feeling
for the land, and the intuitive narrative rythm give the book raw
vitality and pure immediacy.” -- Saturday Review
“Exciting, rushing, lyrical, a complete and subtle emotional
experience.” -- The Chicago Sun-Times
“A folk hero worthy to rank with Robin Hood.” -- The New York
Times
“Here again is that directness and that fierce poetry which one
knew in the old heroic stories, and a hero in whom one can have
such faith and trust that one can bear to read his torments knowing
that he is strong enough to endure them. It is a beautiful and
passionate book. It has been ably translated, and it is well in the
Harvill tradition which gave us Dr Zhivago and The Leopard.” ---
Glasgow Herald
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
