Book description
The Book of Dede Korkut is a collection of twelve stories set
in the heroic age of the Oghuz Turks, a nomadic tribe who had
journeyed westwards through Central Asia from the ninth century
onwards. The stories are peopled by characters as bizarre as they are
unforgettable: Crazy Karchar, whose unpredictability requires an army
of fleas to manage it; Kazan, who cheerfully pretends to necrophilia
in order to escape from prison; the monster Goggle-eye; and the
heroine Chichek, who shoots, races on horseback and wrestles her
lover.
Geoffrey Lewis's classic translation retains the odd and oddly
appealing style of the stories, with their mixture of the colloquial,
the poetic and the dignified, and magnificently conveys the way in
which they bring to life a wild society and its inhabitants. This
edition also includes an introduction, a map and explanatory notes.
