A Brave New Quest
100 Modern Turkish Poems

Paper $19.95    |    0-8156-0840-3    |   2005

A representative selection of modern Turkish poems that conveys in faithful translations the full spectrum of Turkish emotions, humor, intellectual explorations, joys, and agonies.

Reviews
"A Brave New Quest: 100 Modern Turkish Poems is a beautiful, rare jewel. Illuminate by a sapphire blue with white, flame and peacock cover photographed detail from Iznik tile in the Rutwem Pasha Mosque, in Istanbul, this is the only anthology of modern Turkish poetry translated into English. Coming from a nation where virtually everyone is a poet, the anthology contains a vibrant, varied and sophisticated sampling of modern Turkish poetry. Here you will find poems about fear, death, love, nature, change, bewilderment of the senses, transfiguration, cruelty and social injustice, pain, hope, laughter, tears, joy and despair, and above all passionate longing. Poets whose work are included in this translation include Nazim Hikmet, Fazil Husnu Daglarca,Orhan Veli Kanik, Behdet Necatigil, Attila Ilhan, Melih Cevdet Anday, Edip Cansever, Ece Ayhan, Kemal Ozer, Ulku Tamer, and so many more. Each poetic work is selected and translated with loving care for the fine imagery, the lyrical syllables even in English. Editor Talat S. Halman has many starry credentials to explain the fine workmanship in A Brave New Quest. . . . His offering in ’A Brave New Quest’ seems equivalent to a prism that allows the rainbow of beauty and complexity of modern Turkish poetry to sing, quietly, to an English speaking audience. . . . A Brave New Quest: 100 Modern Turkish Poems will enthrall, entice, and enlighten its lucky readers. May its copies fly off the shelves into the hands of those who truly appreciate what poetry has to offer."
— Bookwatch

Description
This anthology features a wide variety of poems about social justice, love, evocations of history, humanitarian concerns, and other themes. It contains stirring examples of the revolutionary romanticism of Nazi m Hikmet; the passionate wisdom of Fazil Hüsnü Dağlarca; the wry and captivating humor of Orhan Veli Kanik; the intellectual complexity of Oktay Rifat and Melih Cevdet Anday; the modern mythology of Ilhan Berk; the subtle brilliance of Behçet Necatigil; the rebellious spirit of the socialist realists; the lyric flow of the neoromantics; and the diverse explorations of younger poets. These poems are infused with their own unique flavors while speaking in an unmistakably universal style.

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Author
Talat S. Halman, professor and chairman of the Department of Turkish Literature at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, is the author and editor of more than sixty books, including Contemporary Turkish Literature and Living Poets of Turkey.

Jayne L. Warner is director of research at the Institute for Aegean Prehistory in New York.

6 x 9, 112 pages, bibliographical notes