Gripping ... Livaneli has produced a novel that, despite its brevity, manages to perfectly encapsulate the remarkable diversity of modern-day Turkey ... Livaneli depicts to striking effect the changes that have occurred in the country during the past decade of dictatorship ... What opens as an engaging political mystery suddenly morphs into fictionalized warzone reportage, and so abrupt is the shift that the reader literally feels like they’ve slammed into a wall. The effect is a literary triumph, underscoring how quickly social realities can be transformed, and how seemingly impossible contrasts can co-exist so near to each other ... Livaneli tackles an impressive array of themes for such a short novel ... Disquiet is an important book, both as literature and politics. Grounded in the circumstances of the Yazidis, it speaks to globally transcendent themes of refugees and displaced populations the world over. Most importantly, it forces the reader to interrogate our own complicity in these ongoing tragedies, and what we can and should do to atone for them.
A short but powerful novel that might well be described as a political treatise wrapped in a parable ... Gripping ... The book becomes a philosophical treatise about everything that plagues the world.
Though no characters in Disquiet alleviate the horrors of genocide, they cross borders, enter lives, and make real the distant traumas for us readers whose only knowledge of the Syrian Civil War is headlines. No matter what we do or don’t do with this knowledge, there is no denying that Livaneli wants us to dwell on it and make it part of our lives.
Livaneli’s poetic book evokes emotion and illustrates just how much love and compassion one person can possess, and that love can be infectious and unconditional.
A somber, pensive novel, by one of Turkey’s greatest modern writers ... Livaneli’s slender narrative contains multitudes ... A brief but intensely emotional, memorable story that spans centuries and continents.
A keenly wrought story ... hough the translation often feels prosaic, the story’s urgency comes through in its tight grasp on the problems of religious violence, misogyny, and the failures of compassion. The result is a memorable illumination of the Ezidi people’s rich history.
