Iron Earth, Copper Sky

Emma — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The second volume in the acclaimed The Wind from the Plain trilogy

Turkey’s greatest novelist, Yashar Kemal was an unsurpassed storyteller who brought to life a world of staggering violence and hallucinatory beauty. Kemal’s books delve deeply into the entrenched social and historical conflicts that scar the Middle East. The Wind from the Plains trilogy is widely seen as his masterpiece, alongside the legendary Memed My Hawk.

After a particularly bad season, a group of poor cotton-pickers are unable to pay their creditor, shopkeeper Adil Effendi. Overwhelmed with shame and guilt, they wait in terror for Adil to come and demand retribution. But when he inexplicably fails to appear, Adil begins to represent an irrational and tyrannical force, growing in their minds until they become sick with apprehension and obsessed with the terrible disaster that is sure to come upon them.

In their despair they turn to Tashbash, a brave, decent and loyal man, investing him with virtue, grace and miraculous power. But the cotton-pickers have no idea of the effect of their idolatry on Tashbash, with his innocent doubts and mental torment, until his fate finally befalls him and the novel draws to its apposite close. Written with deep compassion and lyrical beauty, this is a novel alive with the acute observation of human nature.

Man Who Planted Trees

Emma — Wed, 01 Jan 1992 00:00:00 +0000

‘A book for children from 8 to 80. I love the humanity of this story and how one man’s efforts can change the future for so many. It’s a real message of hope.’ Michael Morpurgo

Discover this beloved masterpiece of nature writing that is a hymn to creation and to the power of the individual to do their bit to change the world for the better.

In 1910, while hiking through the wild lavender in a wind-swept, desolate valley in Provence, a man comes across a shepherd called Elzéard Bouffier. Staying with him, he watches Elzéard sorting and then planting hundreds of acorns as he walks through the wilderness.

Ten years later, after surviving the First World War, he visits the shepherd again and sees the young forest he has created spreading slowly over the valley. Elzéard’s solitary, silent work continues and the narrator returns year after year to see the miracle he is gradually creating: a verdant, green landscape that is a testament to one man’s creative instinct.

A beautiful story of hope, survival and selflessness, The Man Who Planted Trees resonates as strongly with readers today as when it was first published.

Featuring an introduction from award-winning naturalist Richard Mabey, author of Nature Cure.

Harvill Press – The Bell Bookshop

Iron Earth, Copper Sky

Man Who Planted Trees