Novel
Night
Gece
Bilge Karasu · 1985
Synopsis
In an unnamed city and country, night workers appear in the late afternoon, abduct passers-by at random and torture them, according to The Modern Novel; Publishers Weekly speaks of secret squads that kill or beat citizens. A writer, N, is under surveillance, and a former schoolmate, now head of a repressive department, orders him to attend a conference abroad. Several narrators, including the author himself in footnotes, contradict one another, and Kirkus notes a constant reflection on writing.
Context
According to Jale Özata's thesis, it is the author's first novel, coming after several collections of stories, and its multi-layered structure, like its distance from the traditional novel, earned it a reputation as a difficult book. It appeared in Turkish in 1985, according to turkedebiyati.org and Jale Özata; Publishers Weekly gives 1984. It received the Pegasus Prize in 1991, and Güneli Gün's English translation appeared in 1994 from a university press in Louisiana.
Who it is for
A demanding novel, translated into English but not into French, in which it is not always clear who is speaking.
Prizes and reception
The Modern Novel judges it dark and disorienting, with a disorder that is deliberate and effective; Kirkus praises familiar images made new.
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