The latest addition to my website is Bilge Karasu‘s Gece (Night), a blistering post-modern, Kafkaesque parable which could be Turkey but also could be any other police state. There are essentially three things going on. The first is the night workers, symbolically representing the secret police, who come out at night and randomly arrest, torture … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar‘s Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü (The Time Regulation Institute). As part of his reforms, Kemal Atatürk decreed that every town should have a clock so people would know the precise time. This book satirises this. We follow the life of Hayri Irdal in some detail. He is … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Nedim Gürsel‘s Boğazkesen, Fatih’in Romanı (The Conqueror). Gürsel is one of the foremost contemporary writers but this is only one of two of his books translated into English. The eponymous conqueror is Sultan Mehmed II who, among many other places, conquered Constantinople. Gürsel tells two stories: the story … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ahmet Altan‘s Son Oyun (Endgame). Altan and his brother are both currently serving a lifetime prison sentence because of their alleged involvement in the 2016 coup in Turkey. This novel is about an unnamed novelist who goes to an idyllic seaside resort to write his novel and finds … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Güneli Gün‘s On the Road to Baghdad. This is an excellent picaresque novel using magic realism and clearly influenced by the One Thousand and One Nights. Our heroine, Hürü, born in late 15th century Constantinople, is the daughter of a former Karaman prince. When he and his wife … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Adalet Ağaoğlu‘s Curfew. This novel is set in Turkey, primarily Istanbul and Eskişehir, in June 1980, three months before a coup will take place. We follow the story of seven main characters, all linked to one another. In all cases, the story tells of their history but also … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Yaşar Kemal‘s İnce Memed (Memed, My Hawk). This is a classic Turkish novel about good vs evil, specifically the story of a young man who resists an evil, cruel, grasping landowner, and fights Robin Hood style, for the poor and downtrodden. Memed is a young farm worker, who … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Buket Uzuner‘s Kumral Ada Mavi Tuna (Mediterranean Waltz). This is a complicated novel about love and war. Duna Atacan, as a five year old boy, meets Ada Mercan, two years his senior, whose family – the parents are both famous actors – has moved near to his family. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sabahattin Ali‘s Kürk Mantolu Madonna (Madonna in a Fur Coat). Our narrator, who has lost his job, gets a job where he has to work with a German translator called Raif. Raif is treated badly at work and badly at home (by his in-laws) and is often ill. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Orhan Pamuk‘s The Red-Haired Woman. Our hero, Cem, has father issues. His father has deserted the family but when Cem gets a holiday job digging wells, he sees the well-digger, Master Mahmut, as a father figure. They are digging a well in Öngören, a suburb of Istanbul, and … Read more