All translations

Yashar Kemal Gökçeli was born in Adana, in autumn 1923, into a family of well-to-do landlords. His parents came originally from the shores of Lake Van, on the eastern frontiers of Turkey. After a long trek on foot, they settled on the South Anatolian plain of Cilicia, a region populated by big landowners, poor peasants, and the Kurds.

This rocky and hot landscape of the Taurus Mountains became the background of several of Kemal's stories.