This study moves the acclaimed Turkish fiction writer Bilge Karasu (1930-1995) into a new critical arena by examining his poetics of memory, as laid out in his narratives on Istanbul's Beyoglu, once a cosmopolitan neighborhood called Pera. Karasu established his fame in literary criticism as an experimental modernist, but while themes such as sexuality, gender, and oppression have received critical attention, an essential tenet of Karasu's oeuvre, the evocation of ethno-cultural identity, has remained unexplored: Excavating Memory brings to light this dimension. Through his non-referential and ambiguous renderings of memory, Karasu gives in his Beyoglu narratives unique expression to ethno-cultural difference in Turkish literature, and lets through his own repressed minority identity. By using Walter Benjamin's autobiographical work as a heuristic premise for illuminating Karasu, Goekberk establishes an innovative intercultural framework, which brings into dialogue two representative writers of the twentieth century over temporal and spatial distances.
- ISBN10 1644694441
- ISBN13 9781644694442
- Publish Date 29 September 2020 (first published 15 September 2020)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Academic Studies Press
- Format eBook
- Pages 288
- Language English