An intimate portrait of the growing friendship between two writers, forged in a Turkish political prison.

The definitive selection by the first and foremost modern Turkish poet. A centennial volume, with previously unavailable poems, by Turkey's greatest poet. Published in celebration of the poet's one hundredth birthday, this exciting edition of the poems of the Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963) collects work from his four previous selected volumes and adds more than twenty poems never before available in English. The Blasing/Konuk translations, acclaimed for the past quarter-century for their accuracy and grace, convey Hikmet's compassionate, accessible voice with the subtle music, innovative form, and emotional directness of the originals.

Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963), the greatest modern Turkish poet was a political prisoner in Turkey for eighteen years and spent the last thirteen years of his life in exile. Banned in his own country for thirty years, his poetry has been translated into more than fifty languages, and today he is recognized world-wide as one of the twentieth century's great international poets. This revised and enlarged selection of his finest work enables us at last to hear, in a single volume, the full range of his distinctive voice in the highly acclaimed versions that have made him an influential presence in contemporary poetry.

Zena el Khalil, a young Beirut-based female artist, writer, and activist who had an unconventional but worldly upbringing growing up in Lagos, Nigeria and attending art school in New York, returns after 9/11 to her familial home of Beirut and its mountains, beaches, food, music and drugs. Beirut, I Love You, spanning from 1994 to the present day, brings Beirut to life in all its glory and contradictions and is filled with personal anecdotes of Zena's life there: a place where, in spite of the pervasive desire for hope and the resilience of its people, still bears deep scars from the Lebanese Civil War and the Israeli invasion of 2006—a place where plastic surgery and AK 47s live side by side and nightclubs are situated on rooftops in order to avoid car bombs. Yet Zena and her friends, in particular her fellow rebel Maya, refuse to accept the extreme poles of Beirut, the militias and gender restrictions on one side, hedonism and materialism on the other. And although Zena experiences tragedy and loss, her story is a testament to the power of love and friendship, and the beauty of her city and its inhabitants. Written with an honest, profound simplicity, Zena is intoxicated by the country’s contradictions—“Lebanon was, and always will be, schizophrenic”—and attempts to come to terms with her role among her friends, family, and city.