''They Burn the Thistles'' – Ince Memed II ( means ''Memed the Thin'') is a 1969 novel by

Yaşar Kemal Yaşar Kemal (; born Kemal Sadık Gökçeli; 6 October 1923 – 28 February 2015) was a leading Turkish writer of Kurdish descent, who wrote in Turkish and a human rights activist. He received 38 awards during his lifetime and had been a candid ...

. It was Kemal's second novel in his İnce Memed tetralogy. The first Ince Memed novel won the Varlik prize for that year (Turkey's highest literary prize) and earned Kemal a national reputation. In 1961, the book was translated into English by Edouard Roditi, thus gaining Kemal his first exposure to English-speaking readers. In 1984, the novel was freely adapted by

Peter Ustinov Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov (16 April 192128 March 2004) was a British actor, director and writer. An internationally known raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits for much of his career. Ustinov received #Awa ...

into a film (also known as ''The Lion and the Hawk''). Until the publication of

Orhan Pamuk Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born 7 June 1952; ) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, he has sold over 13 million books in 63 languages, making him ...

's '' My Name is Red'' and ''

Snow Snow consists of individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water througho ...

'', İnce Memed was the best-known Turkish novel published after World War II.

Plot

The plot of "They Burn the Thistles" is much the same as in the first novel "Memed, My Hawk", where Memed, a young boy from a village in

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

is abused and beaten by the villainous Abdi Agha, the local landowner. Having endured great cruelty towards himself and his mother, he finally escapes with his beloved, a girl named Hatche. Abdi Agha catches up with the young couple, but only manages to capture Hatche, while Memed is able to avoid his pursuers and runs into the mountains whereupon he joins a band of

brigands Brigandage is the life and practice of highway robbery and plunder. It is practiced by a brigand, a person who is typically part of a gang and lives by pillage and robbery.Oxford English Dictionary second edition, 1989. "Brigand.2" first record ...

and exacts revenge against his old adversary.

Translation

The book was translated into English by Margaret E. Platon.

Praise

The book received international acclaim and fame and was translated to several languages.

Editorial reviews

"Yashar Kemal…specializes in

proletarian fiction The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist philos ...

–novels and short stories that bristle with passion and political commitment…Kemal has become Turkey's first world-class novelist…''They Burn the Thistles'' is thus a valuable addition to the body of literature for society's sake" –- ''The Washington Post''.

References

External links

Memed My Hawk (1984)
at

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Amazon.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thistles, They Burn the 1972 novels Novels by Yaşar Kemal Novels set in Turkey NYRB Classics