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I Will Never See the World Again: The Memoir of an Imprisoned Writer by Yasemin Çongar, Ahmet Altan
emilka_22's review against another edition
5.0
„Ako jasnovidec hľadiaci do krištáľovej gule som sa v šere izby díval na slovo vo svojich rukách: šťastie. Aké len bolo šarmantné, aké skvostné. A odolné voči všetkým mojim pokusom vymámiť jeho tajomstvo.
Zakaždým, keď som sa mu prizrel, vyzeralo ináč.”
~
Táto útla knižka je zhmotnenou odpoveďou na otázku, načo nám je vôbec literatúra. Zároveň je aj odpoveďou na otázku, prečo som nikdy nebola v a ani sa tak skoro nevyberiem do Turecka.
~
Ahmeta Altana nakoniec predsa len 14. apríla 2021 prepustili z väzenia.
Zakaždým, keď som sa mu prizrel, vyzeralo ináč.”
~
Táto útla knižka je zhmotnenou odpoveďou na otázku, načo nám je vôbec literatúra. Zároveň je aj odpoveďou na otázku, prečo som nikdy nebola v a ani sa tak skoro nevyberiem do Turecka.
~
Ahmeta Altana nakoniec predsa len 14. apríla 2021 prepustili z väzenia.
annetjeberg's review against another edition
4.0
Writer Ahmet Altan has been sentenced to life in prison in Turkey. In this short book, he describes his arrest, life in prison and much, much more. A light read on a heavy topic! Got some great thoughts and ideas from this book.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
juliechilders's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. By the end I felt that I was in that cell with him, and he was out here with me. And, googling, to find that he was released in November, only to be re-detained again a few days later. This is another book that reaches into my life and makes me do something different. In this case, I am not exactly sure yet what. Join Amnesty International, for sure. Write letters maybe. Locally, support the City of Asylum, which provides sanctuary to endangered writers from around the world. What more?
theuntrainedlibrarian's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
kingofspain93's review against another edition
3.25
Altan’s insights are valuable, but his writing is not particularly strong. He has a reliance on clumsy metaphors; it’s very possibly a cultural or translation issue. For example, his description of what it felt like for time to no longer be broken up by clocks was enthralling. He managed to convey something about imprisonment that I wouldn’t have considered otherwise, and in a way that made it sound genuinely horrifying. The “clock” that he invented to track time and keep his sanity, which simultaneously looked like him losing his grip, was a powerful passage. But his metaphor describing the entirety of unbroken time as a giant lizard didn’t capture the sense of lived reality that the rest of the chapter did. It felt silly. And that sums up this whole book.
I suspect that, because I haven’t read many authors’ experiences of imprisonment, I was especially interested in what he did manage to describe well. Once I read more, maybe the impact that Altan had on me will lessen. As his is a reality that I want to understand something about, especially since I live in the country with the highest rate of incarceration in the world, I think I Will Never See the World Again was worth my time to read. And again, not being Turkish, reading it in Turkish, or even having read other translated Turkish literature previously, I think that something is probably lost.