A centennial volume, with previously unavailable poems, by Turkey's greatest poet. Published in celebration of the poet's one hundredth birthday, this exciting edition of the poems of the Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963) collects work from his four previous selected volumes and adds more than twenty poems never before available in English. The Blasing/Konuk translations, acclaimed for the past quarter-century for their accuracy and grace, convey Hikmet's compassionate, accessible voice with the subtle music, innovative form, and emotional directness of the originals.

Written during the Second World War while Hikmet was serving a thirteen-year sentence as a political prisoner, his verse-novel uses cinematic techniques to tell the story of the emergence of secular, modern Turkey by focusing on the always-entertaining stories of sundry characters from all walks of life. As his vignettes flash before our eyes at movie-like speed, it becomes clear he is also telling the turbulent story of the twentieth century itself and the ongoing struggle between tradition, which trusts in God, and modernity, which entrusts the world to human hands.

This exciting new edition of the poems of Nazim Hikmet adds more than twenty poems never before available in English. The Blasing/Konuk translations, already acclaimed for the past quarter-century for their accuracy and grace, convey Hikmet's compassionate, accessible voice with the subtle music innovative form, and emotional directness of the originals.

This is the eighth collection from a poet of formal grace an open heart. Blasing's poems of love, the passing of time, and the kinds of desires that transcribe a life are timeless and full of warmth.