"INCE MEMED" TRANSLATED INTO HEBREW
TEL AVIV - "Ince Memed", famous novel of Yasar Kemal,
was translated into Hebrew and published in Israel.
Zvi Bar'el of the renowned Haaretz newspaper of Israel issued an article when the novel translated by Galia and Ceni Vurgen brothers was put on sale at book stores.
Zvi Bar'el said it would be extreme to seek for a similarity between the Turkey narrated in Ince Memed and today's modern Turkey.
İnce Memed which means Memed the Thin is a 1955 novel by Yasar Kemal.
It was Kemal's debut novel and is the first novel in his İnce Memed tetralogy. The 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 into a film (also known as The Lion and the Hawk).
Memed, a young boy from a village in Anatolia 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 Hatce. Abdi Agha catches up with the young couple, but only manages to capture Hatce, while Memed is able to avoid his pursuers and runs into the mountains whereupon he joins a band of brigands and exacts revenge against his old adversary.