Adalet Ağaoğlu
SUMMER’S END
translated by Figen Bingül

Talisman House, Publishers
ISBN 10: 1-58498-059-1
ISBN 13: 978-1-58498-059-9
Paper, 260 pp., 6x9
$22.95

Summer’s End provides a picture of a large cross-section of Turkish society. Dealing with the frustrations and fears of a group of middle-class people on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, the novel provides a multi-dimensional and multi-leveled view of cultural values, politics, personal dilemmas, and sexuality. However, none of these issues is explicitly stated in the work; the inner psyche of the characters hint at these issues, encouraging the reader to explore them further. 

Summer’s End is one of the best examples of Ağaoğlu’s unique style. The language of the novel is poetic. The story is narrated by an author on vacation among the classical ruins of the ancient city of Side, and her description of the location includes precise details of the nature and historical site. Using many symbols, Ağaoğlu looks at the society of the book through the eyes of the narrator and delves into the problems of social and individual unhappiness. 

The novel’s complex structure, rich content and magical language make it one of the most important works of modern Turkish literature.

Translated by Figen Bingul with Ilkan Taskin, Zoe English, and Edward Foster, Summer’s End brings to American readers a novel and author highly regarded in Europe.

“Ağaoğlu accords to the novel the privileged function of bringing life and thought together. She has defined the novel as ‘the form’ where life and thought find unity, making it an indispensable weapon against fragmentation in human life. Each novel is a gesture of defense and resistance against threats to humanness, that is to human dignity, consciousness, love and dreaming. She claims that the novel will cease to exist only when life will gain an inherent unity. This ambitious project of connecting life and thought accounts for both the strong anchoring in external, social and historical reality and the abstract looseness, the lyricism, the evocative poetry of dreaming, thinking internal voices in her novels.” —Sibel Erol, Light Millennium

Adalet Ağaoğlu is among the major world novelists of our time. Her work has been translated into many languages and widely celebrated. She lives in Istanbul.

FICTION