Death In Troy (Paperback)

The emotional and sexual history of a deeply conflicted young villager is assembled from multiple testimony in this rather muddy 1991 novel by the late (1930-95) Turkish author (Night, 1994). It's set in the early '50s, when Mushfik Borecki's moodiness, failed relationships with women, and intense closeness to his young cousin Suat and to the older (married man) Talha provoke both his own guilty ruminations and a crossfire of reminiscence and accusation from Mushfik's hard-drinking, "righteous" father, his subservient mother and smug matriarchal aunt, the girl who thought Mushfik loved her, and various other villagers. Little else happens, in a claustrophobic fiction that fails to convince the reader that its pallid generic protagonist is interesting enough to warrant all the melodramatic attention that Karasu unaccountably focuses upon him. (Kirkus Reviews)

Mushfik is a young man growing up in Turkey, first in Sarikum, a small coastal village, and later in urban Istanbul. He comes of age in an atmosphere of sublimated, disoriented eroticism, his impulses restrained by religious and sexual taboos, rigid gender roles, stifling maternal love, and the enforced silences of social decorum. Unable to adapt easily to society's unspoken rules, he is driven to the point of insanity from which he must slowly and painfully return. Told from several points of view and structured in a series of intersecting flashbacks and interior monologues, Death in Troy describes the difficult geography of male intimacy from multiple perspectives--adolescent friendship, homosexual desire, mother-son bonds, and the relationships between men and women. In a complex chorus of styles and voices, Karasu evokes states of exaltation, humiliation, passion, and despair to create a jarring disharmony of one boy's growth into manhood. "[Karasu's] refusal to be bound by the formal constraints of "The Novel" is meant to reflect his characters' refusal to be bound by the moral constraints of society as they confront their sexualities in a country that, though secular in government, is still largely Muslim in culture." --East Bay Express "Death in Troy is a teeming, elliptical examination of repressed homosexuality by popular Turkish writer Bilge Karasu...Sin, madness and guilt are all balanced by flashes of beautiful imagery and poetic language." --Publishers Weekly Bilge Karasu (1930-1995) was born in Istanbul. Often referred to as "the sage of Turkish literature," during his lifetime he published collections of stories, novels, and two books of essays. Karasu is an influential reference point in the progress of Turkish fiction writing. A perfectionist, a philosopher, and a master of literary arts, he left behind a body of work, which, although intricately woven and at times obscure, skillfully outlines a world unmatched in its crystal clear transparency. Karasu's novel, Night, was published in English translation by Louisiana State University Press in 1994 and was awarded the Pegasus Prize for Literature. Death In Troy is the second of his works translated in English and was published by City Lights in 2002. Karasu's The Garden of Departed Cats, was published by New Directions in 2004. In 2012, City Lights once again published another one of his novels A Long Day's Evening which was shortlisted for 2013 PEN Award for Translation.

General

Imprint:	City Lights Books
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	July 2002
First published:	June 2002
Authors:	Bilge Karasu
Translators:	Aron Aji
Dimensions:	203 x 139 x 13mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	116
ISBN-13:	978-0-87286-401-6
Categories:	Books Promotions
LSN:	0-87286-401-4
Barcode:	9780872864016

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