The Caravan Moves On

This book made Irfan Orga something of a celebrity when it was first published in the 1950s. It is about living with a nomadic people who have no sense of belonging to a nation or the world beyond their tribe. Orga journeys to the center of Turkey to stay with the Yuruk nomads in the High Taurus Mountains. There he learns their lore, listens to their legends, and lives to feel that heroes dead a thousand years and abducted princesses turned mad by grief are still palpably alive. Orga opens a world untouched by politics or the march of events. He reconnects us with a once-ubiquitous emotional landscape-a visceral place underpinned by elemental values.