Great Reads About Turkey: Recommended books to enjoy this spring

A coming of age tale of Turkish teen Asya who is under the wing of her tattoo-parlour owner mother and her three aunts. Aysa befriends a cousin from America and discovers a secret that links her family to the 1915 Armenian deportations and massacres. Author Elif Şafak faced up to three years in prison for her views presented in this novel, with a national prosecutor claiming that she had sympathies towards the purported Armenian genocide through her characters in the book.

It is 1975, a perfect spring in Istanbul. Kemal and Sibel, children of two prominent families, are about to become engaged. But when Kemal encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl, and distant relation, he becomes enthralled. Orhan Pamuk’s first novel since winning the Nobel Prize is a stirring exploration of the nature of romance.

This illuminating anthology provides a window into the country from the perspective of thirty-two expatriates from seven different nations – artists, entrepreneurs, Peace Corps volunteers, archaeologists, missionaries, and others who established lives in Turkey for work, love, or adventure.

Acclaimed writer Kaya Genc has been covering his country for the past decade. In Under the Shadow he meets activists from both sides of Turkey’s political divide: Gezi park protestors who fought tear gas and batons to transform their country’s future, and supporters of the country’s conservative vision who are no less passionate in their activism. He talks to artists and authors, censored journalists and conservative writers, Wall Street types as well as the young Islamic entrepreneurs.

A tale of high adventure and lyrical celebration, tenderness and violence, generosity and ruthlessness, Memed, My Hawk is the defining achievement of one of the greatest and most beloved of living writers, Yaşar Kemal.

Balat, Istanbul: a decrepit neighbourhood of narrow, twisting alleys and crumbling tenements. Until recently it was home to Leonid Meyer, a reclusive elderly Jew who, like many of his neighbours, came here long ago to escape one of Europe’s various bloodbaths. But Meyer’s refuge ultimately became his coffin. Enter Inspector Ikmen…
Barbara Nadel’s intimate expertise with Istanbul means that her crime novels are incredibly accurate as she weaves elements of Turkish culture and society into her ‘’whodunnit’’ series of books.

If there is one book to read about the transition of the crumbling Ottoman Empire to the modern, secularist country of Turkey through the vision and actions of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, this is it.

Set in Istanbul during the last days of the Ottoman Empire, the narrative is a chilling, yet affectionate account of a wealthy Turkish family during the early 20th century, and the eventual demise and polarization brought on by war when the family structure ruptures.

The author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin returns to intertwine historical fiction with actual events through a series of chapters that switch between history and storyline.  Set in the now abandoned ghost village of Kayaköy near modern Fethiye, the book explores the results of the Greek-Turkish population exchange in the 1920s, and the social ramifications thereof.