Published in Zehra Çirak’s third book of poetry, Fremde Flügel auf eigener Schulter (Alien Wings on Your Own Shoulder, 1994), “Frauen—Porträt I” is part of a versatile ekphrastic cycle in which a series of photographs or paintings (or ironically framed… Read More ›
Nazim Hikmet’s series of 32 free-verse poems addressed to his wife, Piraye, from Bursa Prison in Turkey in 1945 constitutes a significant contribution to the tradition of the love lyric as it powerfully synthesizes authentic expressions of love, longing, and… Read More ›
Nazim Hikmet’s five-book “epic novel in verse”—some 17,000 lines long—is a major work by Turkey’s most accomplished 20th-century poet. Memleketimden İnsan Manzaraları made a significant contribution to the traditions of the long poem and to the genre of verse committed… Read More ›
My Name Is Red, the recipient of the International Impac Dublin Literary Award in 2003, is perhaps the most celebrated book by the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (1952– ), who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2006. The novel,… Read More ›
In Turkey, where writer Orhan Pamuk (1952– ) is a foremost intellectual figure, the novel The Black Book has been praised and attacked by both left-wing and conservative critics and columnists. The work has also generated extensive debates about Turkish… Read More ›