Yashar Kemal (born 1922) was the most successful and most widely known of modern Turkish novelists. His works, which also include short stories and essays, are local in color and infused with the spirit of Turkish folk traditions. They show the influence of world classics from Homer to Stendal, Steinbeck, and Faulkner.

Yashar Kemal was born Kemal Sadik Göçeli in southwestern Turkey in the small village of Hemite near Osmaniye in the province of Adana. His father came from a line of feudal landlords and his mother from a family of famous brigands in eastern Anatolia. At the age of five Yashar Kemal saw his father shot to death while praying in the mosque and, in the same incident, lost one of his eyes. He did not attend school until he was nine (walking two hours a day in order to do so) and had no...