Peter Owen Publishers are proud to announce that they will be publishing The Idle Years by Orhan Kemal, on the May 1st 2008. Introduced by Orhan Pamuk,

the Nobel Prize Winner for 2006, The Idle Years is one of the most celebrated novels in Turkish, now translated into English for the first time. Its first English publication will be celebrated at the Turkish Embassy in London and Peter Owen will be sending out press invitations once the date for the party is finalised.

The Idle Years is one of Kemal's best-loved works: a semi-autobiographical novel, it is a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of tumultuous political events. Heavily influenced by his radical lawyer of a father,

Kemal was renowned for his anti-authoritarianism, as well as the humanitarian drive and direct style of his writing. Something of a Turkish Hemingway/Orwell, then, he is much-loved in Turkey and his relatively early death in 1970 was an occasion for national mourning. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk pays tribute to one of his most illustrious forebears in his specially-commissioned introduction. To see an extract of this introduction, please contact Peter Owen's sales and marketing team