01/01/2010

Turkish novels beckon

Three publications on Turkish Literature promise exciting reading.

[...] the relationship between literature and economic/cultural conditions. ‘The Western novel, or rather the novel, describes the individual, the human example of bourgeois society,’ says Fethi Naci and claims that Ottoman society had a structure that prevented the ‘individual’ from emerging.

He studies the resistance against westernization as a theme in the first Turkish novels like Felatun Bey ile Rakım Efendi, Araba Sevdası, Aşk-ı Memnu and then follows the trail of the West-East theme of later novels. Rural novels and the author Yaşar Kemal are highlighted in this introduction, along with periodical novels such as the 12 March novels including Dawn (Şafak) by Sevgi Soysal and 12 September novels like It was a Summer Shadowed by the September (Eylülün Gölgesinde Bir Yazdı) by Ferit Edgü. He completes his foreword with the last decade of the 20th century, featuring novelists like Orhan Pamuk, Tahsin Yücel and young writers. READ MORE

Wets my appetite for Turkish novels. Can't wait to read Orhan Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence, which beckons from my bedside table...

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