The Idle Years

Orhan Kemal is one of Turkey's best-loved writers, with a standing equal to Charles Dickens in England. These are the first two semi-autobiographical novels in a series, set in the 1920s and 1930s when Turkey was undergoing major social change. The unnamed narrator grows up in an affluent household in an Adana village with his brother, two sisters, mother and formidable father, a known political agitator, but the family is forced to migrate to Beirut on account of his activities. The boy develops into a rebellious and feckless teenager, reluctantly attempting to support his now impoverished family through menial work while resenting his father's stern attempts to control him. The most famous of Kemal's writings in Turkey, this is the first time that it has been published in English and it features a foreword by 2006 Nobel Prize winner, Orhan Pamuk.