Kușlar da Gitti (The Birds Too Are Gone) stands in contrast to the epic sweep of the huge novels for which … [Kemal] has gained his international reputation. It is short and spare, but it contains, in compact form, almost as a synecdoche, the strengths which have become Yashar Kemal's hallmarks.

The plot and the characters hold a firm grip on the reader's attention for their universal values, although they do not lack the authenticity of the Turkish context. The style is enchantingly lyrical in the narrative passages and fully attuned to the rhythms and colors of the Turkish language in the dialogues. The way Kemal establishes links between scenery and psychological states is nothing short of magical. Like Faulkner, to whom Kemal has always felt akin, he creates a mythic framework, and like much of the best fiction produced by the major Latin American writers in the...