Human Landscapes From My Country

Nazim Hikmet’s epic masterwork.  

Hikmet wrote Human Landscapes from My Country while serving a thirteen-year sentence as a political prisoner. This 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.