Persian version of Yasar Kemal’s “Çakircali Efe” published in Tehran

TEHRAN – A Persian version of the late Turkish author Yasar Kemal’s “Çakircali Efe” has recently been published by Nimaj Publications in Tehran.

 

The book is about the life of nomad militiaman Çakircali Mehmet Efe who fought against the Greeks in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-22.

 

Kemal who celebrated the lives of the downtrodden and whose works were translated into 40 languages, died on Saturday. He was 91 years old.

 

Translated from Turkish into Persian by Alireza Seifeddini, “Çakircali Efe” was first published in Turkey in 1972.

 

Several other books by Kemal have previously been translated into Persian and published in Iran over the past few years.

 

Kemal’s most famous work, “Memed, My Hawk” (1955), was translated into Persian by Samin Baghcheban

 

The book is about a bandit hero who exacts revenge from a cruel overlord. The novel eventually earned Kemal a nomination for a Nobel Prize in 1973.

 

Other Persian translations include “The Birds Have Also Gone” (1978) by Mostafa Ilkhanizadeh, “God’s Soldiers” (1978) by Einollah Gharib, “They Burn the Thistles” (1969) by Iraj Nobakht and “A One-Winged Bird” by Maryam Tabatabaiha.

 

Known for his lyrical approach, Kemal, who helped develop the “village novel”, championed peasants and wrote stirringly of the natural and manmade disasters they faced.

 

“All my life, my only dream was to write a little bit more, a little bit better,” Kemal said in 2012 after the completion of his final novel.

 

RM/YAW

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