The legend of the thousand bulls

This is a wonderful tale about that small corner of Anatolia where Kemal grew up. Its in the south east not too far from the Syrian border and a crossroads of cultures. Arab, Kurdish, Turkish, Armenian, Muslim, Christian, Alevi, Yezidi.

This story is centred around the Turkmen nomads which opens with the Turkmen tribe sitting up waiting for a legendary night when all their wishes will come true. The story then begins in earnest and concerns one of the last nomadic tribes in this part of Turkey desperately trying to find a piece of land where they can settle and graze cattle. The problem for them is that Turkey has now moved into the republic, the land has become settled and owned by local businessmen many of whom with Turkoman ancestry settled there long ago, struggled against the elements and made a home there with no interest in it being upsured by nomads from the mountains.

The book is essentially a struggle between an old world and a newly forming one. Against old traditions and new ways. Old loyalties and new standards of living. If anything it invokes some of the great Russian novels of the late 19th Century.