Reckless
Published on 12. March 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-1-4088-5086-2 (ISBN)
Description
LONGLISTED FOR THE FT/OPPENHEIMERFUNDS EMERGING VOICES AWARD 2016
Thirty years after completing his military service Ziya flees the spiralling turmoil of one of Turkey's great sprawling cities to seek a serene existence in a village of which he has long heard dreamlike tales.
Having endured two years of gruelling military life, taking brutal orders from a man hiding behind his rank, and then losing his wife and child in a terrorist attack, Ziya has never quite been able to return to the life he once had until one day he breaks free.
Arriving in the village, Ziya is greeted by his old friend from the army, Kenan, who has built and furnished a vineyard house for him. There he is welcomed by Kenan's family, but the village does not provide the total isolation Ziya yearns for and he is forced back through the tangled web of his memory to the time he and Kenan spent defending the treacherous Syrian/Turkish border in search of the reason why Kenan feels so extravagantly in his debt.
Hasan Ali Toptas masterfully blurs the boundaries between dream and reality, truth and memory, past and present, to create a gripping and surprising tale that introduces a major writer to English-language readers for the first time.
Thirty years after completing his military service Ziya flees the spiralling turmoil of one of Turkey's great sprawling cities to seek a serene existence in a village of which he has long heard dreamlike tales.
Having endured two years of gruelling military life, taking brutal orders from a man hiding behind his rank, and then losing his wife and child in a terrorist attack, Ziya has never quite been able to return to the life he once had until one day he breaks free.
Arriving in the village, Ziya is greeted by his old friend from the army, Kenan, who has built and furnished a vineyard house for him. There he is welcomed by Kenan's family, but the village does not provide the total isolation Ziya yearns for and he is forced back through the tangled web of his memory to the time he and Kenan spent defending the treacherous Syrian/Turkish border in search of the reason why Kenan feels so extravagantly in his debt.
Hasan Ali Toptas masterfully blurs the boundaries between dream and reality, truth and memory, past and present, to create a gripping and surprising tale that introduces a major writer to English-language readers for the first time.
Reviews / Votes
Reckless is a challenging, innovative, deeply humane novel set along one of the world's most febrile battlefields ... Soon the landlady gives her own life story - a long, sordid tale of lust, greed and revenge ... Hasan Ali Toptas is interested in what brings men together and what drives them apart, realising his vision of friendship with a wise and ageless economy reminiscent of J. M. Coetzee's fable about another border ... Often surreal, occasionally funny, full of awe for humanity and its potential, and never anything but ambitious, Reckless suggests that for Turkey, and for all of us, the truth about what we're capable of isn't very pleasant. The real battles, Toptas shows us, are in our hearts, where the outcome is all too often a crude form of justice * <i><b>TLS</b></i> * Turkish literature has encountered an extraordinary writer. Hasan Ali Toptas is a master of language and construction and Turkish literature's strongest writer of novels. He is one of the few writers who will make their mark on the future of Turkish literature * <B><I>Huerriyet</B></I> * Our Franz [Kafka]'s new name is Hasan * <B><I>Frankfurter Allgemaine</B></I> * A novel to be read slowly, with frequent pauses to catch your breath. Take it in small servings, to stop it interfering with your life. And beware! This book can hurt * <b><i>Yeni Safak</i></b> * Hasan Ali Toptas, master of language and plot ... Toptas is without doubt one of the greatest novelists in the Turkish language, and this may be why Heba is such a joy to read. This is not a novel to read and forget. It is forceful, beautiful, and bursting with life. Read it! I say. * <b><i>Aksam</i></b> * An extraordinary tale ... Reckless proves there is more to Turkish fiction than one man. It is a strange, troubling but compelling ride of a novel * <b><i>Toronto Star</i></b> *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 135 mm
Weight
363 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-5086-2 (9781408850862)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Hasan Ali Toptas is one of Turkey's top writers. His short story collections include The Identity of a Laugh, The Whispers of the Nobodies and Solitudes. His novels have won the Cankaya Literature Prize, the Culture Ministry Prize, the Yunus Nadi Novel Prize, the Cevdet Kudret Literature Prize, the Orhan Kemal Novel Prize and the Turkish Writers' Union Great Novel Prize. His early masterpiece Shadowless (1995), also translated by Maureen Freely and John Angliss will be published by Bloomsbury in 2016. He now lives in Ankara. He has been translated into German, French and Finnish. Solitudes has been made into a play and Shadowless was made into a film in 1998.
Maureen Freely is a novelist and journalist who contributes to the Guardian and the Independent. She translated Orhan Pamuk's recent novels from Turkish into English. She grew up in Turkey and now lives in England.
John Angliss won the inaugural British Council's Young Translators' Prize for prose in 2012. He lives in Ankara.
Maureen Freely is a novelist and journalist who contributes to the Guardian and the Independent. She translated Orhan Pamuk's recent novels from Turkish into English. She grew up in Turkey and now lives in England.
John Angliss won the inaugural British Council's Young Translators' Prize for prose in 2012. He lives in Ankara.