They Burn the Thistles

by Yashar Kemal

Other authorsBill McKibben (Introduction), Margaret E. Platon (Translator)
Paperback, 2006

Status

Available

Call number

894.3533

Collection

Publication

NYRB Classics (2006), Paperback, 424 pages

Description

The sequel to Memed, My Hawk - an epic tale set in the Turkish mountains by Turkey's most important twentieth-century writer This is the story of a bitter war between the poor Turkish peasants of the Taurus Mountains and the Aghas who covet their land. Ali Safa is determined to take possession of the village of Vayvay but its inhabitants will not sell. Then one villager weakens, prepared to part with his land in return for the Agha's best stallion. But this ill-fated deal sets in motion a chain of events which will see the young brigand Slim Memed take up the cause of the poor once again, with dramatic consequences.

Media reviews

Originally published in 1969 and situated in the early twentieth century, the novel feels much older than either period. The tone is anachronistically free of self-consciousness and irony; the setting, too, is untouched by the “bourgeois class” that Kemal, perennially rumored to be a Nobel
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Prize candidate, finds “rotten.” Peasants plow and herd, individualism is minimal—some quotes are attributed to entire villages—and loyalty never wavers.
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Subjects

Language

Original language

Turkish

Original publication date

1969

Physical description

424 p.; 7.9 inches

ISBN

1590171853 / 9781590171851

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