The Birds Have Also Gone - Softcover

Kemal, Yashar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0749390158 ISBN 13: 9780749390150

Publisher: Vintage/Ebury (A Division of Random House Group), 1989

Synopsis

There is an ancient Turkish tradition that promises the person who frees a small bird a place in paradise. Three boys set up a business of catching birds to enable people to free them, but city people are now sceptical and tragedy lies in wait for the boys. The author also wrote "Memed, My Hawk".

About this title

About the Author:

Yashar Kemal was born in 1923 in a village on the cotton-growing plains of Chukurova. He received a basic education in village schools before becoming an agricultural labourer and factory-worker. His championship of poor peasants lost him a succession of jobs, but he was eventually able to buy a typewriter and set himself up as a public letter-writer in the small town of Kadirli. After a spell as a journalist, he published a volume of short stories in 1952, and then, in 1955, his first novel Memed, My Hawk won the Varlik Prize for best novel of the year. His highly distinguished literary career has continued in this vein; his work has won countless prizes from all over the world and has been translated into several languages. Kemal was a member of the Central Committee of the banned Workers' Party, and in 1971 he was held in prison for 26 days before being released without charge. More recently, he has been placed on trial for action in support of Kurdish dissidents. Among the many international prizes and honours he has received in recognition of his gifts as a writer and his courageous fight for human rights, are the French Legion d'Honneur and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger. Kemal is Turkey's most influential living writer and, in the words of John Berger, "one of the modern world's great storytellers".

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage/Ebury (A Division of Random House Group)
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0749390158
• ISBN 13: 9780749390150
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128