They Burn the Thistles

They Burn the Thistles – Ince Memed II (Turkish: İnce Memed means Memed the Thin) is a 1969 novel by Yaşar Kemal. It was Kemal's second novel in his İnce Memed tetralogy.

The first Ince Memed novel won the Varlik prize for that year (Turkey's highest literary prize) and earned Kemal a national reputation. In 1961, the book was translated into English by Edouard Roditi, thus gaining Kemal his first exposure to English-speaking readers. In 1984, the novel was freely adapted by Peter Ustinov into a film (also known as The Lion and the Hawk).

Until the publication of Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red and Snow, İnce Memed was the best-known Turkish novel published after World War II.