A nihilistic wit reminiscent of Samuel Beckett.?"Independent on Sunday"
The cast-offs of modern urban society are driven out onto the edges of the city and left to make a life there for themselves. They are not, however, in any natural wilderness, but in a world of refuse and useless junk?a place which denies any form of sustainable life. Here, the unemployed, the homeless, the old and the bereft struggle to build shelters out of old tin cans, scavenge for food and fight against insuperable odds.
And yet somehow they survive: it seems that society thrives on the garbage hills because it has always been built on one. In this dark fairy tale full of scenes taken from what has increasingly become a way of life for many inhabitants on this planet, Latife Tekin has written a grim parable of human destiny.
A major best seller in her native Turkey, Latife Tekin maintains a politically active presence and has written a number of literary works.
Saliha Paker translates Turkish poetry and is a member of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham. Ruth Christie is a translator of Turkish poetry and prose.
"A provocative and enjoyable work."?"Times Literary Supplement"
"A small masterpiece of beauty."?"Women's Review of Books"

This collection covers the broad vision of mankind's history with a story of an individual journey, in the course of which the poet explores the cosmic and the microcosm, the immensities of Time and Space, of becoming and Being. The poems came during a pilgrimage in south-western Anatolia. Matur has created a personalised iconography based on Islamic references and imagery, and she presenting complex ideas with a simplicity of expression that is perfectly mirrored in Ruth Christie's translation.

Capan's poetry manages to sound ancient and traditional while being firmly rooted in today's world; it is both thoroughly Turkish and at the same time European - and beyond that, part of a greater world literature. Many of his poems are personal, and in this book he looks back at times past, remembering friends and family and places that have touched his life for ever. The natural world is ever-present, especially the sea which moves restlessly, powerfully, relentlessly throughout, and the lucidity and simple beauty of these poems in Ruth Christie's exquisite translation remain with you long after you have put this book down.