The last flock of birds swirling in the wounded sky of autumn suddenly vanishes from sight – only the echo of their wingbeats remains. Son Birds, Sait Faik’s mature work, pursues this echo: It is a never-ending song of separation, stretching from the broken cobblestones of Istanbul to the deserted piers of the Prince Islands.

Friendships silently consumed at tavern tables, fishermen talking to shadows, lonely children hearing the whistle of a ferry in their dreams… Sait Faik exhibits the finest tuning of his craft in these stories: With sentences as simple as the flickering light of a street lamp, as unruly as the burning wind blowing from the sea. In each story, there is a deep but fragile touch that “makes man human” – sometimes as sharp as the cry of a seagull, sometimes as soft as the salty water seeping into the end of a handkerchief.

“Anyone who waits for a bird to land on his shoulder is a little lonely,” says the author, but we know that even loneliness is as light as a bird’s wing, as long as it is shared.

The Last Birds is not a farewell greeting in the author’s storytelling, on the contrary, it is like a final note that engraves its voice in our hearts: It makes us unable to take our eyes off that last bird standing at the end of the endless summer season. As you turn the pages, you will feel the fluttering of wings in your chest; because when Sait Faik bids farewell to the birds, he actually salutes all the joys of the human being that have been lost.

Pick up this book, start reading it in the dim light of the street lamps – perhaps at that very moment the sky will open above you as the birds take wing for the last time.