Memed, My Hawk [Paperback]

Yashar Kemal (Author, Introduction), Edouard Roditi (Translator)

Book Description

Series: New York Review Books Classics | Publication Date: June 30, 2005

A tale of high adventure and lyrical celebration, tenderness and violence, generosity and ruthlessness, Memed, My Hawk is the defining achievement of one of the greatest and most beloved of living writers, Yashar Kemal. It is reissued here with a new introduction by the author on the fiftieth anniversary of its first publication.

Memed, a high-spirited, kindhearted boy, grows up in a desperately poor mountain village whose inhabitants are kept in virtual slavery by the local landlord. Determined to escape from the life of toil and humiliation to which he has been born, he flees but is caught, tortured, and nearly killed. When at last he does get away, it is to set up as a roving brigand, celebrated in song, who could be a liberator to his people—unless, like the thistles that cover the mountain slopes of his native region, his character has taken an irremediably harsh and unforgiving form.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Some books are so famous they need no introduction. But have you ever read Yashar Kemal? His first novel, Memed, My Hawk (NYRB Classics), set in the south-east of Turkey and about a young man at war with feudal authority, was published in the 1950s and brought him international fame. It is still greatly loved in Turkey, and with good reason." --The Guardian

“Yashar Kemal is one of those writers who is content with the patch of earth allotted by birth. As in the case of Faulkner, Akhmatova, or even Joyce, all the events described circle around the site of an early injury. These writers evoke landscapes containing people who, however lost they may be in their marginal existences, fix their gaze upon the center of the world and take up residence there. [Kemal is driven to] write against the age and to tell those stories that have not been elevated to the status of affairs of state because they deal with people who never sat on high, who did not dominate but rather were themselves dominated.”—Günter Grass

“Yashar Kemal is a thousand kilometres tall and can make a story of two stones tender and spellbinding. A master.”—John Berger

“A beautiful and passionate book . . . in the tradition which gave us Dr Zhivago and The Leopard.” —Glasgow Herald

“A tale that assumes epic proportions and gathers speed to rush to a spectacular climax.” -- Daily Telegraph

"A beautiful novel in the old, glorious tradition of heroic storytelling." —Scotsman

"Follows in that tradition of strong, simple novels about the life of the peasantry. It has that insider's feeling for man, the oppressed, labouring animal . . . you might find in Tolstoy, Hardy or Silone. The author never loses his freshness, an ability to pick on details as though seen for the first time." —Guardian

"Yashar Kemal achieves the Russian quality — an intimacy of detail which makes his etching indelible, more selected, and therefore more obvious than life . . . The book is a small, sharp, moving epic of the Turkish soil." —Sunday Telegraph

"A masterpiece." —Robert Carver, New Statesman

“A remarkable novel, reminiscent of Hardy in its power and scope.” —Queen

“The sense of heroism, the animal tenderness, the marvelous feeling for the land, and the intuitive narrative rythm give the book raw vitality and pure immediacy.” -- Saturday Review

“Exciting, rushing, lyrical, a complete and subtle emotional experience.” -- The Chicago Sun-Times

“A folk hero worthy to rank with Robin Hood.” -- The New York Times

“Here again is that directness and that fierce poetry which one knew in the old heroic stories, and a hero in whom one can have such faith and trust that one can bear to read his torments knowing that he is strong enough to endure them. It is a beautiful and passionate book. It has been ably translated, and it is well in the Harvill tradition which gave us Dr Zhivago and The Leopard.” --- Glasgow Herald

From the Back Cover

"Yashar Kemal is one of those writers who is content with the patch of earth allotted by birth. As in the case of Faulkner, Akhmatova, or even Joyce, all the events described circle around the site of an early injury. These writers evoke landscapes containing people who, however lost they may be in their marginal existences, fix their gaze upon the center of the world and take up residence there. [Kemal is driven to] write against the age and to tell those stories that have not been elevated to the status of affairs of state because they deal with people who never sat on high, who did not dominate but rather were themselves dominated." —Günter Grass

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 392 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics; Tra edition (June 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159017139X
• ISBN-13: 978-1590171394
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #256,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Middle Eastern

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You will not be able to put this down!!, August 14, 2000

By 

Emin Ozgur (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Memed, My Hawk (Paperback)

I started book on a Friday night and ended up reading until the first lights of day. I had to get an early breakfast to continue reading. Such is the captivity of the story of "Memed the Skinny".

"Memed My Hawk" is Yasar Kemal's most famous novel, and is followed by 3 sequels. It's the story of a rebellious young boy in Southern Turkey in 1930s versus the tyranny of the feudal lord. However, please do not pick up this book expecting a locally consticted fairy tale. Mr Kemal, a nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, has always written about universal struggles against opression in with substantial depth and successful clarity.

Mr Kemal is known for his detailed descriptions of the natural and political environment around the Taurus mountains - which incidentally happen to be the birthplace of this reviewer - with a rich, colorful language. Unfortunately, I am unable to comment on the (English) translation since I have read the book in its original Turkish edition only. But I must advise the (English) reader to look for the best translation of the work if at all possible.

Please do not consider me biased because we share the same hometown with Mr Kemal(which is a very important aspect of Turkish friendships). But I can easily say that this is the first thing you must read if you are entering the world of Yasar Kemal and Turkish Literature. And you must follow this by Orhan Pamuk's "Black Book"...

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Once Upon a Time in Turkey, October 2, 2003

By 

Robert S. Newman "Bob Newman" (Marblehead, Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Memed, My Hawk (Paperback)

Down in that fertile part of southern Anatolia called the Chukurova, where crops yielded forty-fold and deer, birds, and beetles throve, the feudal landlords, who owned entire villages, oppressed the peasants mightily. They took whatever share of the crops they desired and could beat the villagers on any whim, or even drive them from their homes. Justice was an undreamt-of luxury. For rebels, or for those who had incurred the landlords' wrath, the only alternative-besides joining the Army---was to become a bandit in the mountains. The life of a bandit, though, however free, was usually short. Yashar Kemal, who grew up in this area, wrote this novel back in the 1950s; his first major work, which by now has been translated into nearly every major language and has become a modern classic.

Kemal introduces the life and traditions of the inhabitants of the Chukurova, a region unknown in most parts of the world. At least, he gives us a picture of the life they had in the 1920s or `30s. The novel describes the social conditions then existing there, introduces dozens of interesting, colorful characters, and also focusses on the natural environment, which by our times, has mostly disappeared. All this is done through the medium of a fast-moving, action-packed story which could be the script of a film (and may well have been, though I never saw it anywhere). Memed, a slim young man, wishes to marry Hatche, a beautiful village girl. The nasty landlord has other ideas---he wants her to marry his ugly nephew. The young lovers elope into the forest, but are surrounded by the landlord's minions. Memed draws his pistol and shoots the nephew dead, wounding the landlord. Memed winds up as a bandit, Hatche winds up in jail, and the rotten landlord has Memed's mother beaten to death. Her son swears revenge. Nomads, trackers, crazy bandit chiefs, tough peasant women, village farmers, policemen---the number of lifelike characters is endless. Memed not only turns bandit, but he becomes a Robin Hood character, a legend in his own time, who defies the prevailing feudal order and even re-distributes the landlord's fields to the tillers at one point. No wonder they loved him ! Perhaps some of Kemal's later work is deeper psychologically, perhaps his palette of colors got wider, but MEMED MY HAWK stands out as a great story written in masterful style. It is a novel about justice, a novel that treats basic human emotions in any time or place. It heralded the arrival of a major author on the world scene. I recently read it again. I liked it just as much.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Read this novel!, July 29, 2004

By 

Jorge F. M "Jorge Flores" (Naucalpan Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Memed, My Hawk (Paperback)

I read this book because I saw in the cover (Spanish edition) the UNESCO logo. A novel endorsed by UNESCO? It couldn't be bad. Well, it turned out to be great.
This is the story of Memed, an 11- year old kid who lives with his mother in a small Turkish village. Tired of hardship and hard work, he decides to leave his impoverished home. He escapes and is taken in by an old, good-hearted peasant. His mother believes he is dead, and looks for him for several days until she finally gives up hope.
But Memed starts feeling homesick, so he decides to go back home. Bad call. The local landowner, a ruthless man, hears that Memed is alive and sets off to recover the child, a part of his labor force. And this is only the beginning...
This is a great book by a great author. If you' ve had the luck to arrive to this page and read the reviews, go and get a copy of this book. A fascinating story awaits you.