The latest addition to my website is Hasan Ali Toptaş‘ Gölgesizler (Shadowless). This is a decidedly strange novel, set partially in a barber’s shop in an unnamed city and partially in a remote village, far away from the city, which also has a a bfrber’s shop. People have the habit of leaving the city barber shop, all under the watchful but somewhat perturbed eyes of the novelist, and suddenly turning up in the village, without explanation and, to a certain degree, vice versa. People also simply disappear from the village and turn up, often a long time later, without explanation for their absence or return. Not only can no-one explain what is happening, no-one tries to. Are some the the fantastical characters responsible or is it the remote state or is it simply because the world is irrational and incomprehensible and things happen that we do not and cannot understand? Toptaş gives us no clues as to the whys and wherefores. It just is.