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julianmdaniel 's review for:
Seher
by Selahattin Demirtaş
A gift from someone dear to me.
Selahattin Demirtaş is a courageous man, currently arrested unjustly for his work advocating for democracy and social progress in Turkey and the rights of Kurds, and Dawn is his collection of short stories written during his incarceration. The book is short; many of the stories are less than ten pages long, but memorable all the same. A handful of the stories are rather grim and upsetting in theme, such as those depicting an honor killing or the death of a Syrian refugee, but all are memorable all the same. If the book can be faulted for anything, it's that some of the stories included, in particular those two grim ones ("Seher" and "The Mermaid") are rather straightforward in what occurs, simply describe a series of events, but other stories such as "Asuman, Look at What You've Done!" and "A Letter to the Prison Letter-Reading Committee" are delightful and inventive. All stories are very distinctly Turkish in their setting.
The strength of this book, however, is the way it shows how under Erdogan's regime in Turkey, politics—or, more particularly, the quest for social justice for women, for working people, for refugees, for the impoverished—is inescapable. For offering such a vivid and authentic perspective on the struggles and simple joys of people in Turkey today, Dawn is well worth a read.
Selahattin Demirtaş is a courageous man, currently arrested unjustly for his work advocating for democracy and social progress in Turkey and the rights of Kurds, and Dawn is his collection of short stories written during his incarceration. The book is short; many of the stories are less than ten pages long, but memorable all the same. A handful of the stories are rather grim and upsetting in theme, such as those depicting an honor killing or the death of a Syrian refugee, but all are memorable all the same. If the book can be faulted for anything, it's that some of the stories included, in particular those two grim ones ("Seher" and "The Mermaid") are rather straightforward in what occurs, simply describe a series of events, but other stories such as "Asuman, Look at What You've Done!" and "A Letter to the Prison Letter-Reading Committee" are delightful and inventive. All stories are very distinctly Turkish in their setting.
The strength of this book, however, is the way it shows how under Erdogan's regime in Turkey, politics—or, more particularly, the quest for social justice for women, for working people, for refugees, for the impoverished—is inescapable. For offering such a vivid and authentic perspective on the struggles and simple joys of people in Turkey today, Dawn is well worth a read.