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.
