Kemal, Yashar

YASHAR KEMAL was born into a Kurdish family in a village in southern Anatolia and saw his father brutally murdered at the age of five. He received his basic education in village schools before working as an agricultural laborer, factory-worker, public letter-writer, and journalist. His first novel, "Memed, My Hawk" won the Varlik Prize for best novel of the year in 1955. Kemal's numerous other books include "The Wind from the Plain" trilogy, "Salman the Solitary, Seagull," and three other books recounting the expoits of Memed, including, "They Burn the Thistles." He lives in Istanbul, as its p...