Novel · A way to begin
Memed, My Hawk
İnce Memed
Yaşar Kemal · 1955
Synopsis
At Deyirmenoluk, a village in the Taurus, the agha Abdi takes the greater part of the peasants' harvests and beats young Memed, who lives with his widowed mother, Deuneh. The boy runs away to old Süleyman, who takes him in; the agha has him brought back and punishes the family by taking even more from it, until famine sets in. Grown into a young man, Memed loves Hatche, whom the agha has promised to his nephew, and flees with her; they are pursued. Memed finds refuge with Süleyman, then takes to the mountain and joins a band of brigands.
Context
The novel appeared in 1955. Britannica states that the author wrote three further novels around Memed, the first in 1969, and that the book was made into a film in 1984. The English translation appeared in 1961 under the title Memed, My Hawk, the same year as Guzine Dino's French translation from Del Duca, later taken over by Gallimard. The author was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1973 and received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1997.
Who it is for
A long adventure novel in Turkish, the first of a series of four, translated into French and English.
Prizes and reception
Translated into more than twenty languages according to Britannica; the author received numerous literary prizes.
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