Nâzım Hikmet Knihy

"Such a poet as Hikmet is beyond our hopes in this country. He is pure feeling. He writes our most private thoughts with a zest and love that makes us treasure them in ourselves. We learn to love ourselves through love of him, a poet who bestrides the world of man ever joyfully, even in dwelling upon his sorrows."--David Ignatow.

Features poems that combine passion and simplicity with sophistication.

Written during the Second World War while Hikmet was serving a thirteen-year sentence as a political prisoner, his verse-novel uses cinematic techniques to tell the story of the emergence of secular, modern Turkey by focusing on the always-entertaining stories of sundry characters from all walks of life. As his vignettes flash before our eyes at movie-like speed, it becomes clear he is also telling the turbulent story of the twentieth century itself and the ongoing struggle between tradition, which trusts in God, and modernity, which entrusts the world to human hands.

A contemporary international classic, available in English for the first time. Hikmet's final book--an autobiographical novel about a man who is imprisoned for being a Communist, his friends, and the women he loved. Considered to be a major work in his oeuvre. This is the first publication in English translation.