Sema Kaygusuz

Kurdistan + 100 poses a question to twelve contemporary Kurdish writers: might the Kurds have a country to call their own by the year 2046 - exactly a century after the last glimmer of independence (the short-lived Kurdish Republic of Mahabad)? Or might the struggle for independence have taken new turns and new forms? Throughout the 20th century (and so far in the 21st), the Kurds have been betrayed, suppressed, stripped of their basic rights (from citizenship to the freedom to speak their own language) and had their political aspirations crushed at every turn. In this groundbreaking anthology, Kurdish authors (including several former political prisoners, and one currently serving a 183-year sentence for his views) imagine a freer future, one in which it is no longer effectively illegal to be a Kurd. From future eco-activism, to drone warfare, to the resuscitation of victims of past massacres, these stories explore different sides of the present struggle through the metaphor of futurism to dazzling effect. The first anthology of Kurdish science fiction ever collected and published in the UK, we have invited authors from all parts of 'Kurdistan' and the diaspora to write specially commissioned stories set in their own versions of the future.

This novel by one of Turkey's most highly regarded writers tells the story of a granddaughter's reckoning with the suppressed and traumatic memories of her grandmother, who survived a genocidal massacre in the Dersim region of southeast Turkey in 1938. Based on Sema Kaygusuz's relationship to her own grandmother, the novel embeds the turmoil of contemporary mass violence within mythic and deep historical timescapes, cracking open the modern history of Turkey to ask greater questions about good and evil, about exile and survival, about resilience in an age of everyday horror.

Prisbelönt turkisk berättare »Jag minns som i går hur mitt väsen uppenbarades för mig genom en enda mening. Min mor berättade en dag hur jag dök upp som en bländande blixt i hennes sköte, hur hon upplevde kärleksakten då befruktningen fullbordades och viskade i örat på min far: »Det är en flicka.« I min barndom hörde jag också en annan mening: »De skar halsen av oss.« Det var min farmor som yttrade den med en oväntad, egendomlig, ljudlig suck« Tusentals aleviter mördades vid massakern i den turkiska provinsen Dersim 1938. Sema Kaygusuz farmor var en av överlevarna. Detta är berättelsen om farmoderns tystnad och profeten Hizir, om fikonet med dess otaliga frön och om kärlek mjuk som sammet.

Blending mysticism and modernity, Kaygusuz’s stories demonstrate why she is regarded as one of the most promising writers in Turkey today.

Sema Kaygusuz, prisbelönad novellist, romandebuterar med en berättelse som bryter ny mark i den turkiska litteraturen. »Böner som faller till marken« är en polyfon roman med rötter i såväl antikens myter som de islamska och bibliska tankevärldarna. En ung kvinna vårdar sin alkoholiserade far på en blåsig ö i Egeiska havet, när ett illasinnat rykte börjar cirkulera bland byborna. »Tveklöst en stor roman, oerhört poetisk och vacker« Le Littéraire