A contemporary international classic, available in English for the first time. Hikmet's final book--an autobiographical novel about a man who is imprisoned for being a Communist, his friends, and the women he loved. Considered to be a major work in his oeuvre. This is the first publication in English translation. It’s 1925. Ahmet hides in a stone hut in Izmir with fellow Communist Ismail. Bitten by a possibly rabid dog and sure that seeking treatment courts imprisonment, Ahmet marks the door for each symptomless day of the 41 until he’s in the clear. He casts back to his student days in Moscow and the Russian girl he had to leave without notice. He also casts forward to the 1930s and Ismail’s repeated imprisonment, culminating in torture. Finally, he vaults to 1962, when, among his friends again, Ismail’s wife fortuitously repeats Ismail’s words from 1925, “Life’s good, brother.” This autobiographical novel by Turkey’s premier poet, in which both Ahmet and Ismail stand for him, is a major source for translator Blasing’s biography of Hikmet (reviewed in this issue). Hikmet’s commitment to accessibility ensures that the novel is never obscure or confusing, despite sparingly shifting between first- and third-person narration, even in a single paragraph, a seemingly cinematic device, like cutting from medium-shot to close-up or vice versa, that alters our emotional perspective on the characters. --Ray Olson " Hikmet’s commitment to accessibility ensures that the novel is never obscure or confusing, despite sparingly shifting between first- and third-person narration…like cutting from medium-shot to close-up or vice versa, that alters our emotional perspective on the characters. " ― Booklist " ...a written gift of memory and experience. ...The personal reflections are humorous, the experimental delivery is exciting, and the drama is always profound. One would be hard pressed to find a similar personal reflection on the printed page that reaches such poetic heights. " ― James Burt, ForeWard Reviews Nazim Hikmet is considered Turkey's greatest modern poet. For his Communist views, he was imprisoned in Turkey and his work was banned. His poetry has been translated into more than fifty languages. He won the World Peace Prize (the USSR's equivalent of the Nobel) in 1950. He died in 1963 in exile. Mutlu Konuk Blasing , a native of Istanbul, is Professor of English at Brown University. Her books include Lyric Poetry: The Pain and the Pleasure of Words . She is the co-translator (with Randy Blasing) of the renowned English translations of Nazim Hikmet, and the author of four scholarly books on American poetry.