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...

(b. 1922), Turkish novelist, journalist, short-story writer. One of Turkey's most prominent writers, Yasar Kemal draws his ideas from Turkish folklore, cultural traditions, and everyday life. Yasar Kemal's real name is Kemal Sadik...

Yaşar Kemal (born Kemal Sadık Gökçeli[1]) is a Turkish novelist, considered to be one of the best writers in...

Ya|ar Kemal, with Alain Bosquet. Ya|ar Kemal on His Life and Art. Eugene Lyons Hebert, Barry Tharaud, trs. Syracuse, N.Y. Syracuse University Press. 1999. xxix + 167 pages. $24.95. ISBN 0-8156-0551-X. Ya|ar Kemal, Turkey's preeminent novelist, is probably best known to English-speakers...

To say that The Saga of a Seagull is about an eleven-year-old boy who adopts as a pet a young seagull with a broken wing might suggest some embarrassing piece of sentimental whimsy built on the child-plus-animal formula. Alternatively, it might suggest a modish, cynically ghoulish reversal of the predictable formula. The opening, in which the boy Salih first finds a small dead coot on the beach and immediately afterwards discovers the damaged "baby seagull", does make for uneasy reading, since...

"Bird and tree conjoin in us," wrote René Char in "Recherche de la Base et du Sommet." The urge to take flight and the need to root down and take hold are fundamental human polarities. This double need for grounding and transcendence lies at the very heart of "Seagull" [published in Britain as "The Saga of a Seagull"], Yashar Kemal's latest novel, and is reflected in all its curious images of children attempting to tie flying things to th...

In the 1950s Turkish fiction moved out of the centers of urban culture into rural Anatolia, giving rise to an impressive output which is often referred to as the "Village Novel." The practitioners of this brave new genre are, unlike earlier pioneers in the field, writers who were born and reared in poverty-stricken villages. Their work has the poignancy of personal agony experienced during their formative years. The leading figure of the "Village Novel" is Yashar Kemal. (p. 181) ...