Dear Yasar Kemal, you must have had your reasons for proposing me as a speaker for this occasion. I was glad to respond to your wishes and yield to the temptation to glide inland from the Mediterranean, over the flat muddy fields along the coast, then over the lands of Cukorova with its cover of blackberry bushes, wild vines and reeds, then farther inland over the swamps, and then once again over rich farmland, myrrh fragrant hills, plateaus, including Dikenliduzu with its five villages, where one can already see the snow-covered peaks of the Taurus.

Yasar Kemal is one of those writers who is content with the patch of earth allotted by birth. As in the case of Faulkner, Akhmatova, or even Joyce, all the events described circle around the site of an early injury.