Turkey Book Talk #280 – Nefise Kahraman discusses Translation Attached, which brings lesser known Ottoman and Turkish literary gems to an English-reading audience.
The conversation also addresses Translation Attached’s seventh book, “Beneath the Handkerchief, and Other Tales”, a volume of 25 humorous and socially observant short stories by the late author and diplomat Memduh Sevket Esendal (1883-1952). Translated by Etkin Hanson, it is the first selection of Esendal’s work to appear in English and gives readers a flavour of a distinctive voice from 20th century Turkish letters.
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Turkey Book Talk #261 – Burcu Karahan of Stanford University on her translation of “One Thousand and One Kisses: The Most Joyous and Flirtatious Stories” (Translation Attached).
The collection brings together 65 stories blending risque humour and bold eroticism, first published anonymously in weekly instalments in 1923-24. The stories are a fascinating time capsule of a vanished age, but much remains unknown about who was behind them and the circumstances of their publication.
Download the episode or listen below:
Read a transcript of the interview on Substack.
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : Apple / Spotify / PodBean / Stitcher / PlayerFM / Listen Notes
Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / Bluesky
Please support Turkey Book Talk as a member on either Substack or Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, access to transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
Turkey Book Talk episode #100 – Holly Shissler, associate professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish History at the University of Chicago, on the life and work of Ahmet Mithat Efendi (1844-1912).
Ahmet Mithat is among the most important men of letters in the late Ottoman era. The publisher of the newspaper Tercuman-i Hakikat, he was also the author of many fictional works including Felatun Bey and Rakim Efendi, which appeared in an English translation from Syracuse University Press in 2016, and which Shissler wrote an afterword for.
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