This rare gem is finally available in English thanks to Maureen Freely’s masterful translation.Ģ. Although the story is, in many ways, universal, Dervis brilliantly captures the particularities of Turkish society and its struggle with modernity. In this novel, Celile is torn between her respectable husband and her passionate tango partner in 1940s Istanbul. One of Turkey’s leading female authors, Dervis (1905–72) wrote about the loss and longing of urban, affluent Turkish women.
Originally published in 1945, this is the Madame Bovary of Turkish literature. With the choices below, I wanted to highlight books about Turkey that not only talk about its historical and social context, but also reflect the distinctive styles and the creativity of their authors in dealing with individual, philosophical and political questions.ġ. Yet there is also a balance: the greatest Turkish literature discusses serious issues, but will also lighten the heart and put a smile on your face. In this way, I see my writing as Turkish – these are the issues that we breathe every day they are buried in the soil under our feet. The book examines the complications of family life alongside the despotism, violence and atrocities that litter our history and the social amnesia that now surrounds us.
In my latest novel, At the Breakfast Table, a family gathering to celebrate the matriarch’s 100th birthday soon exposes the family’s – and Turkey’s – fraught history. If, as Abraham Verghese says in his brilliant Cutting for Stone, “geography is destiny”, then I think it does. Is it Orhan Pamuk’s depictions of a society caught between modernity and traditionalism? Or Elif Shafak’s novels, which highlight the difficulty of being a woman in Turkey? Does our literature have to be political in order to be considered “Turkish”? I am often asked what defines Turkish literature.
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