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Short stories

Değirmen

Not translated into English

Sabahattin Ali · 1935

Synopsis

Sixteen stories divided into three parts, the last bringing together “old stories”. According to the blog Yeşimle Her Telden, the first, “Değirmen”, tells of the love of Atmaca, a young Roma clarinettist, for the miller's daughter, who has only one arm; in “Kurtarılamayan Şaheser”, a young poet spends eight years writing a book to win a woman; in “Kanal”, two friends raised together, both named Mehmet, fall out over an irrigation canal; in “Candarma Bekir”, a prisoner and the gendarme who accompanies him are former enemies.

Context

The collection appeared in 1935 from Remzi Kitabevi, with the subtitle “Hikâyeler”. In his preface, the author warns that some texts, written when he was very young, are weak and that he would be ashamed to have written them, but that he has no right to hide what he has already given to the public, and he leaves it to the reader to sort them out. The book was reissued in 1943 in a single volume with another work by the author; it was banned in 1944. The Küre encyclopaedia counts its author among the founders of the so-called literature of the homeland.

Who it is for

Sixteen short stories in Turkish, to be read separately; the author has been translated into French, but not this collection.

Prizes and reception

First collection of stories by its author according to the Küre encyclopaedia, which compares its form to that of Maupassant.

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