One of the best things about August’s WIT Month (reading literature by women in translation) is the abundance of reviews that come out, that will often be my source of prospective purchases for the year ahead, as there is no better time where there is such a proliferation of titles being discussed.
The Other Side of the Mountain by Erendiz Atasü is one of those books I came across in a blog post I read in 2017, a post entitled Contemporary Turkish Writers Available in English Translation by Roberta Micallef.
Have you read any novels or books by Turkish women? I was thinking about that as I read these opening words:
Turkish literature is a rich, creative, wonderful treasure trove that is well worth exploring. I am delighted to have this opportunity to share works by extraordinary contemporary Turkish women authors whose works have been translated into English.
I visited Istanbul in 2013 (see my post Ottoman Distractions) and was excited to visit a local bookshop and get some books by local writers, it’s true I had already read quite a few books by Orhan Pamuk and while in Turkey I read his excellent, if somewhat melancholic work, Istanbul, Memories of a City and I have read quite a few novels by Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love, The Bastard of Istanbul, Honour, Three Daughters of Eve and her thought provoking non-fiction essay, The Happiness of Blond People: A Personal Meditation on the Dangers of Identity.

Topkapi Palace Library
But what was everyone else in Turkey reading, what other woman writers were writing stories, telling their history’s? Turkey has such a rich culture and history, straddling both the European and Asian continents, its families with strands often reaching back to geographies they’ve had to flee, a gateway between worlds.
The bookshop owner pushed two books into my hands, the classic Portrait of a Turkish Family by Irfan Orga and an archeological mystery Patasana by Ahmet Ümit. But no books by women authors.
Erendiz Atasü’s novel reads like a mix of memoir, history and storytelling, as one woman reflects on her mother’s life, how little she knew of her and struggles to try to ameliorate that through what she has left behind. It’s a theme I’ve noticed often recently, the lack of understanding that comes from only knowing or observing a mother for the adult part of her life, the events that shaped her buried deep, coming out in behaviours misunderstood by the generations that follow, pondered on when it’s too late to find out more.
Vicdan and her friend Nefise have won state scholarships to university in Cambridge, England. They’ve won them on merit and they are excited by the opportunity presented. They are also part of a political strategy which the author shares when sharing some of the inspiration for the novel, her mother was a recipient of such a scholarship in 1929:
The Revolutionary aim of the Republic was to create a social and cultural synthesis of East and West, and so bright students were sent to leading European universities to be educated not only in the sciences and technology, but also in literature, music and art.
The girls travel together, taking the boat to Marseille, travelling up to England, later they will holiday in Berlin, a visit that leaves dark impressions, they read in other languages, they mix with young people from many cultures. Nefise is at first tempted to cross lines Vicdan is resolutely against. Vicdan stays strong and true to her intention of gaining her education and returning to Turkey to benefit her country. She recalls the struggles of childhood, her family fleeing their home in the Balkans, her father called on to participate in the first world war, her brothers sent away, the prejudices of others if your accent wasn’t right, or your birthplace.
Nefise receives a proposal of marriage, the young man doesn’t understand her rejection of him:
‘I am a Republican,’ Nefise had said, ‘and you are an army officer serving an Empire. We have nothing in common.’
Ted had been shaken; he found politics unsavoury. However, while an honourable officer might not be interested in politics, he would not hesitate to die for his King and country if necessary.
‘What country?’ Nefise had said, ‘Is India your country?’
While the narrative begins with girls going off to England, it chops and changes in perspective, telling the story of Vicdan’s family and how events changed their circumstances and destiny, the death of the father, the remarriage of the mother, her brother’s Reha and Burhan sent away to a military academy chosen by their stepfather before the wedding ceremony (a fact Burhan never forgave), their childhood over, while another would begin with the subsequent arrival of a younger half-brother, never truly accepted by his older brothers.

Reading Area in the Palace Library, Istanbul
As the narrative changes perspectives, it is interspersed with the thoughts of the various characters, demonstrating the different attitudes, resentments, all the many things never said, that build a picture of the impact of historical events on a family and the ties that bind them together, no matter what happens.
With this characteristic of writing, it can become both insightful and confusing, insightful as we are taken inside the mind and letters of a character and confusing as we skip back and forth across time.
As the author says, her interest is in:
‘the essence of things that happen, the reasons for them and the results, the impact they have on individual psyches, the impressions on inner selves, have always been the issues of paramount importance to my mind.’
and on three people whose influence on her heart mind resonate throughout the book:
‘Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, whose being supplied the sap which has sustained my country’s life; that major poet Nazim Hikmet; and the major writer Virginia Woolf, whose work has drawn me closer to the writer hidden in me’
It was an interesting read for me and I enjoyed the blend of history and perspective and how it impacted the lives of characters throughout the novel. The author captures the influences, and penetrates the minds of her characters and so begin to understand what they can not, how each generation if formed by their experiences and their hopes are placed in those who inspire them in their youth, but these things are not experienced in the same way as the years pass by, one who was venerated yesterday can become hated by the youth of tomorrow.
I did find the sequence it was written confusing at times, but that didn’t really distract from the overall impression, which was the diversity of backgrounds lived through and that aspiration to build a bridge between different parts of the world and their people and the importance literature has in contributing to that.
Fascinating review Claire i really enjoyed reading it.
I really would recommend Irfan Orga book which I really enjoyed reading it and how it portrayed earlier Turkey people lives.
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Yes, I have read it and loved it too. My review is linked here.
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Great review. I enjoy Turkish novels. I have not heard of this one. So far I’ve read Pamuk, Elif Shafak and Sabahattin Ali.
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Pamuk and Shafak are very well known now, international really, I haven’t heard of Sabahattin Ali. I agree, I like that perspective that in my imagination anyway, somehow straddles the divide between East and West, swinging one way then the other and with such a long history and mix of people who’ve somehow made their way there. So many stories to share.
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I’d reccommed Sabahattin Ali’s Madonna in a fur coat. I think you will like the read.
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Sounds like an interesting book, especially given the mix of memoir, history and other elements. Funnily enough, I’ll be reading Elif Shafak’s Three Daughters of Eve fairly shortly as it’s my book group’s read for September. The woman who picked it will be going to Istanbul for work during the autumn (hence the choice of book), so I’ll let her know about that post on Turkish writers. I’m sure she’ll be keen to take a look.
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That’s interesting you will be soon reading a Turkish novel and one in which a young Turkish woman also travels to England for an education, it’s an interesting premise at different periods in time, that perspective of the foreign student gaining an education abroad and the weight of expectation they often carry with them, at odds with the freedom they find while pursuing it.
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Interesting sounding book, particularly attracted by the blend of memoir and history. I heard Elif Shafak speak at a Birmingham literature festival event a year or two ago. Not read anything by her yet though.
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It’s inspired by members of her family, though it is a novel, I love books that are inspired by people and events, but are not necessarily limited by their stories. It does have multiple perspectives and I had to kind of let go a little of expecting it to read chronologically, as it goes back and forth a lot, which means it’s difficult to review as a story, but I was left with this understanding of just how complex it is for each generation to really “get” the one that went before them, how easy it is to judge, based on knowledge of a partial lifetime, that many of one’s ancestors never ever tell, or share the hardship, because they all want that the next generation doesn’t have to experience it, but that also breeds a not surprising attitude of discontent, when subsequent generations are perceived as having it too easy and not appreciating the gift of a life of relative ease.
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I recommend Sevgi Soysal: Noontime in Yenisehir – a masterly account of various lives, male and female, in 1960s Ankara. Sadly the author died relatively young, and this is I believe her only work to have been translated into English.
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