Cemile is a 15 year-old Bosnian girl working with her brother in a textile factory in Adana. 'Pockmark' Halil from the Çukurova valley wants to marry her but her heart is set on Necati a clerk at the factory.

The foremen team up with the illiterate partner in the factory and incite the workers to revolt against Orlando the Italian engineer brought in to change their outdated practices. The other partner in the factory is Mr Numan an educated and forward thinking man and he puts a stop to their revolt. The workers involved are sacked.

Cemile marries the clerk Necati.

In this powerful work Orhan Kemal takes one tiny part of the factory workers' neighbourhood namely Cemile's home and lets his enthusiasm for his subject paint a picture of the neighbourhood as a whole. With images of tightly clustered houses and the whole neighbourhood awakening simultaneously to walk to the factory en masse we are presented with a rich and fascinating insight into their everyday life.