From a writer whose international acclaim can now spread to US shores comes a wise, craftily spun, and spine-tinglingly erotic tale of love, courage, and the forging of conscience-'a novel of startling integrity and beauty' (Independent on Sunday). In the beginning there is death, says one narrator in this enthralling 'treasure of a novel' (Alan Silletoe), but after that there is life: robust, riotous, nave, sensual, tragic, and profound. Through a series of 13 linked stories connected by a circle of young friends, Moris Farhi writes of the trials and joys of children coming of age in an increasingly dangerous and politicized world: Turkey just before, during, and after World War II. The death at the beginning is that of a girl endowed with second sight, who sees the war and the Holocaust coming and can't bear the gift of life. For Musa, a boy allowed into the women's bath like a fly in a bowl of naked fruit, the change comes when one woman notices his manhood. Bilal, a Jew, sets off for occupied Greece to rescue his relatives and never comes back. Davut participates in a plot to save a poet who is a national hero and anathema to the ruling party, and finds his innocence abused by the plotters. Here is a novel that captures the richness of a moment in history and the timeless aspirations of youth.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In his latest novel, Farhi weaves together 13 short tales to tell a powerful story of Turkey just before, during, and after World War II. On the eve of war, people still believe in a Turkish culture that can accommodate any number of races and religions. But Hitler's march through Europe makes this an increasingly dicey proposition for the nation's Jews and the Turks who wish to stand by them. As Turkey begins to unravel, a cross-section of young Turks race toward adulthood in an increasingly polarized world, each in turn telling a piece of the country's beautiful and savage tapestry. In the luminous "Lentils in Paradise," two young boys find honest delight in the pleasures of the body, but soon discover that they can't be children forever after what they discover in the women's bathhouse. In "A Tale of Two Cities," a group of foolhardy teens embark on a plan to save their friend's relatives from persecution in Greece. The story is imbued with the tragedy of a doomed mission. Its honesty captures the ephemeral, sensual and often brutal process of becoming an adult as the book's haunting tone walks the line between a novel of ideas and an extended coming of age story.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
'Moris Farhi shames the willed littleness of British fiction with this novel. In Farhi's writing there is a distinctive collision of traditions which results in something funny, political and unique.' David Hare
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Who is A Turk?,
By A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Young Turk: A Novel in 13 Fragments (Hardcover)
Thirteen stories, each with their own narrator, are woven together to comprise this tapestry of life in Istanbul from the late 1930s to the mid-1950s. Although told through many mouths, the people are all somehow related, through friendship, kinship, schooling, or neighborhood. And while each story is it's own carefully crafted meditation on love, longing, friendship, sex, politics, or religion, they are bound by the common theme of what it means to be Turkish. Although the emphasis is on Turkish Jewry, narrative voices run the gamut, and include Muslim, Christian, Greek, Armenian, Donme, Gypsy, Levantine, and more, all of whom are proud Turks.Most of the stories are concerned with earnest teenagers attempting to discover their place in the world. A world that is increasingly precarious, as World War II sets Europe ablaze and threatens to draw Turkey into the flames. For many of the characters, there are Jewish relatives to worry about, especially those in Nazi-occupied Greece. Several stories, touch upon the plight of the historically Jewish city of Salonica, where 90% of Jews were deported to death camps. The most memorable story revolves around the plan a few of the teenage boys have to sneak across the border in order bring of the boy's relatives back to Turkey using stolen British passports. Another memorable story revolves around a punitive tax imposed on all minority groups in 1942, when Turkey flirted with aligning itself with Germany. This was designed to strip all minorities, especially Jews, of their wealth, and was repealed 18 months later. The story concerns the efforts of people to help their Jewish neighbors. Two figures appear throughout the stories as exemplars of what it means to be Turkish. Of course one is Ataturk, the founder of modern, secular Turkey, and his name is constantly evoked along the lines of "If Ataturk could see this, he wouldn't stand for it." The other is the poet Nazim Hikmet, whose praises are sung throughout. The voice for both of these is a progressive professor who becomes a hero for the young Turks who narrate these stories. Despite all the different narrators, the voice of the storytelling never shifts very much. Male, female, different classes, different backgrounds all sound more or less the same. The prose is a little too lush in painting the rich picture of Istanbul of fifty years ago, and the pervasive sense of tragedy gets somewhat wearying by the end of the 400 pages. Farhi's book is, in the final distillation, a plaintive cry for pluralism, multiculturalism, tolerance, and modernity that's entirely relevant to today, as Turkey struggles with the Kurdish question, EU membership, and Islamic fundamentalists. Probably of greatest interest to those interested in the Jewish angle, but worth reading by anyone with an interest in Turkey.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Young Turk,
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This review is from: Young Turk: A Novel (Hardcover)
Amazon Service: Price, delivery ---all ExcellentNovel: A fictional account based upon the author's growing up in Istanbul, Turkey in the late 40s & early 50s. Events (told by different characters) allow for philosophical observations and discussion. One event (a character deciding whether to attempt to fight multiple attackers or to run) parallels a theme in the larger story. Young Turk: A Novel
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