Leylâ Erbil tr. Nermin Menemencioğlu and Amy Marie Spangler
RaveAsymptoteBalancing various voices, the text is unsettling in parts and humourous in others, as in when the stream of consciousness in the second section serves as a historical counterpoint to the still-aspiring present, while the fourth section cruelly exposes the gap between leftist ideals and the actual reality for the ‘people’. Yet, what makes this novel extraordinary is its feminist nature. A Strange Woman was published at a time when the word feminism had not yet entered the Turkish vocabulary and mindset, and as such it was ground-breaking in confronting issues such as virginity, incest, and sexual and physical abuse ... By speaking through Nermin, a young woman and aspiring poet growing up in Istanbul, Erbil vividly conducts us through the cultural and political scenes of the city during the 1960s.
