Short stories
Memleket Hikâyeleri
Not translated into English
Refik Halid Karay · 1919
Synopsis
Fourteen independent stories, written between 1908 and 1919, most of them set in the Anatolian towns where the author was exiled, and three on the outskirts of Istanbul. They show the hardship of civil servants, craftsmen and ordinary people, the life of small towns and the weight of custom. In “Yatık Emine”, according to turkedebiyati.org, a woman who has worked as a prostitute in Ankara is banished to a provincial capital; rejected by the inhabitants and thrown into prison, she is then housed in an empty house where she lives in poverty.
Context
The collection appeared in 1919, 1335 in the Rumi calendar. The Küre encyclopedia sees in it, in a natural Istanbul Turkish that does not imitate local speech, a major work of the Anatolian current of the National Literature. The second edition, in 1947, contains eighteen stories, four having been added according to turkedebiyati.org. A second collection, published in 1940 and written for the most part during the author's second exile, is set mainly in Syria.
Who it is for
Short stories in Turkish, to be read separately; no French translation has been found.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by the Küre encyclopaedia as one of the first realistic portrayals of the people of Anatolia in Turkish prose.