[The setting of Kemal's "Iron Earth, Copper Sky"] is the southern central part of his country, Antalya, in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains. As Mr. Kemal presents it, it is a timeless, primitive world; though there is brief mention of radios and tractors, the Government in Ankara is unbelievably remote—certainly much more remote than specters, saints, devils, witches and jinns, all of whom are real rather than metaphorical. In fact, the timelessness is such that legends ("in those days there were two holy persons in the world …") float easily into modern village happenings….

Even more than his earlier books, ["Iron Earth, Copper Sky"] comes from and lives on the borderland between fiction and legend, its events drawing on the atmosphere of rumor, superstition, fear and the wild fancies of ignorance that possess his Antalyan villagers….

Mr. Kemal is both closely involved with his characters and capable...