Memed, My Hawk — 12 karakter
Abdi Ağa
He is the absolute master of five villages in Dikenlidüzü. Without caring who the land truly belongs to, he forces the villagers to work like semi-slaves and seizes almost all of the proceeds of their labor. Seeing that his power is shaken by Memed's rebellion, Abdi uses every kind of intrigue to destroy Memed; he sets the gendarmerie, Ali Safa, and other bandits against him. Despite his cowardly nature, he does not compromise on his ruthlessness.
Ali Safa Bey
He is one of the most powerful landlords who usurps the lands of the town and its villages by using modern legal loopholes, deception, and laws as tools. After studying for a time in Istanbul, he returned to the region and became influential over the state through his identity as a lawyer and his wealth. He uses Abdi Aga as a pawn to serve his own strategies, and the existence of a rebel like Memed deeply disturbs him.
Cabbar
A bandit who, weary of Deli Durdu's torments, left along with Memed. He is Memed's right-hand man. He is experienced, sensible, and possesses practical intelligence. He senses that banditry is more than just robbery and perceives the epic majesty in Memed's soul.
Deli Durdu
A bandit leader whose name has become legendary in the Taurus Mountains. He is known for his habit of leaving people stark naked when robbing them. Initially, Memed takes refuge with this gang, but over time, he becomes disgusted by Durdu's structure, which is based on pure extortion, cruelty, and showmanship, devoid of any ideology. Eventually, he clashes with Memed and parts ways due to the cruelty he inflicted upon a poor peasant.
Döne
Ince Memed's widowed mother. For many years, she worked in misery on Abdi Ağa's field, her labor entirely exploited. She was the one who brought Memed back when he first fled to the forest because she was terrified of the Ağa's wrath. However, in the end, she understands the righteousness of her son's fight.
Hatçe
She is the young girl to whom Memed gave his heart and with whom he escaped by breaking the rules of Dikenlidüzü. After an armed clash during their escape, she is captured by the gendarmes and thrown into prison after being slandered as a 'murderer'. While suffering greatly there, she meets Iraz, receives her support, and finds the strength to endure during her pregnancy.
İnce Memed
An orphaned peasant boy living in the village of Değirmenoluk in Dikenlidüzü, working for mere sustenance on Abdi Ağa's fields alongside his mother, Döne. Unable to endure Abdi Ağa's oppression, he runs away from the village as a child but is forced to return. When he grows up, he elopes with his beloved, Hatçe, after she is forcibly betrothed to another. In the ensuing conflict, he kills the Ağa's nephew, wounds Abdi Ağa, and takes to the mountains. He gains experience alongside bandits like Deli Durdu but eventually rejects their methods of oppressing the people, becoming a legendary folk hero and protector of the poor peasants. He encourages the villagers to reclaim their lands.
Iraz
An aggrieved Anatolian woman who, after the death of her husband Hüseyin, resists alone to raise her son and loses her son Rıza in a treacherous ambush (by the Kalaycı and the Alis) while fighting to get her land back. She is imprisoned with Hatçe; with all her motherly heart, she supports Memed's 'falcon-like' struggle.
Koca Osman
An octogenarian white-bearded villager who serves as a respected elder of Çiçeklideresi village. He resisted the oppression of Ali Safa, embraced Memed as his hero (his hawk), and offered him hope by gifting him land in the village.
Recep Çavuş
An experienced and older bandit in Deli Durdu's gang. He has endured the mountains for 3 years. With Memed's arrival, he begins to question the injustice in the gang more. Finally, when cornered in a raid by the gendarmes, he jumps forward to save Memed and sacrifices himself, dying in the process.
Topal Ali
A famous scout in Dikenlidüzü and Çukurova who can track the footprints of stones and birds. On Abdi Ağa's instructions, he goes after Memed but realizes that Memed is a brave villager rebelling against injustice and that Abdi is the embodiment of evil; therefore, he protects Memed and deliberately leads the gendarmes off track.
Yaşar Kemal
Yaşar Kemal was born in 1923 in the village of Hemite, near Osmaniye in southern Turkey, and was named Kemal Sadık Gökçeli. His Kurdish family had been driven from the Van region during the First World War and had settled on the Çukurova plain. An accident cost him his right eye at about three; at five he watched his father stabbed to death in the village mosque, and the shock left him with a stammer until he was twelve. His schooling broke off early. He hired himself out in the cotton fields and then set up in Kadirli writing petitions for those who could not write. While still young he began collecting laments in the Taurus mountains, and that collection became a book in 1943. Arrested in 1950 on a charge of communist propaganda, he moved to Istanbul the next year and wrote reportage for the daily Cumhuriyet, travelling Anatolia village by village and winning a wide readership. His first book of stories appeared in 1952 and Memed, My Hawk in 1955. The story of a peasant who takes to the mountains to escape a landlord's cruelty has been translated into nearly forty languages. In the Çukurova novels that followed, and in the later volumes of Memed, he wrote the same soil and the same people as a widening epic. He held office in the Workers' Party of Turkey, was tried again and again for what he published, and in the 1990s received a suspended sentence for an article on the Kurdish question. He joined the epic, the folk tale and the lament of oral tradition to social realism, and made the nature of the Taurus and Çukurova inseparable from human fate. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize and received the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. He died in Istanbul on 28 February 2015.