Murat Gülsoy (born 1967) started his literary career as a publisher and a writer of the bimonthly magazine Hayalet Gemi (Ghost Ship) in 1992. His works explore the metafictional potentials of self-consciousness with ‘page turning’ plots. He also produced interactive hypertext works on internet exploring new ways of narrative. Gülsoy has published 11 books in Turkey so far. Besides short stories, he has three novels addressing modern masters Kafka, Borges, Eco, Stern, Fowles and Orhan Pamuk. He is the recipient of most prestigious national literary awards. Being a writer, he also works as an engineer for biomedical science, as a psychologist, as a teacher for creative writing. He is the chairperson of the editorial board of Bogazici University Press. Stehlen Sie dieses Buch is the first book to be translated into German (Literaturca Verlag). His last novel, 'A Week of Kindness in Istanbul' has been translated to Chinese, Macedonian, Romanian, and Bulgarian.
A Week of Kindness in Ýstanbul
The Lingering Death of a Lover
Short Stories:
A Week of Kindness in Ýstanbul, Tabernakul
A Week of Kindness in Ýstanbul
novel
Murat Gülsoy, outstanding member of a new generation of Turkish writers, attracts international attention with his new novel, A Week of Kindness in Istanbul. His books have been translated to German, Chinese, Macedonian, Rumanian and Bulgarian. Mastering the classical storytelling, Gülsoy is also known for his explorations in narrative techniques and won the two of the most prestigious literary prize in Turkey.
A Week of Kindness in Istanbul, opens with the narrator's statement asking seven people looking at Max Ernst collage novel: Une Semaine de Bonte (A Week of Kindness) that is known as the best of Ernst's collage novels created out of periodical illustrations, Murat Gülsoy's protagonists from Istanbul explores their interior worlds across the terror and surprise of Ernst creations. Other's minds are windows for the writer. The seven person of the book let us look thorough their windows. The challenges of adult lives are narrated in richly nuanced meditations. The black and white surrealism on the paper is transformed to real people's lives and imaginations. Just like the literature on the paper who unfolds our tangible lives.
Seven characters, known by the fictive author of the novel, are asked to write their feelings and ideas inspired by the Ernst’s collage pictures automatically. Pictures are sent daily and this experiment lasts seven days just like the seven days of the original book Une Semaine de Bonte. The structure of the narrative is based on the collection of the automatic writings of seven characters of Istanbul today. The unusual plot allows the reader to observe the diversity of the personal styles in a dense way.
The senior character, Halil writes about the life in Istanbul, his family, and his friends through vivid descriptions. As the project develops, his writings force him to face his fear of death and hope to leave a trace from his ordinary life.
Ayþe, is a divorced, middle aged academics in social sciences; and analyses the pictures in parallel to her life crises. Through a cold blooded self-analysis, she problematizes the condition of being an intellectual woman in a third world, Muslim country.
Ali, is the most eager one at the beginning but, he arrives at a painful confession at the end. During the writing process, he becomes aware of his weaknesses, his unhappy marriage, his denial of past sins.
Akýn a former political activist who is a white collar today sees his life span in the pictures of Ernst, tries to veil his betrayals through a poetic narration. His lines uncover the story of a young university student who had lost his love because of his cowardice. His life was poisoned by the darkness of political situation of 80s’ post-putsch era in Turkey.
A young working mother Deniz writes about her secret life enriched with fantasies. Ambiguity of the surreal pictures provokes her oppressed sexual desire and she turns her feelings to a wild stream of consciousness with this project.
Erol, an old friend of the fictive author, resists becoming a part of this experimental project. He and fictive author have once shared the ambition of being a writer. They invented literary games, they tried hard but he is the one who could not succeed. That’s why, he is depressed to be challenged by his old friend. Nevertheless, he starts to play and he crafts an interesting surreal plot in which all novel turns to be a metafictional work.
Yaðmur, a single young woman, is the cousin of the fictive author and she tells a lot about him and his family. Her fears, nightmares, and despair predominate her narrative. The crowded solitude of Istanbul embraces her. Her isolated life becomes a vicious circle and worse of all, her awareness is getting crystal clear through this writing experiment.
The novel, A Week of Kindness in Istanbul, creates scenery of individual lives in 21st century Istanbul by reconstructing the layers of 20th century European surreal collages of Max Ernst.
The Lingering Death of a Lover
novel
The Lingering Death of a Lover is the story of a man who takes care of his wife in coma. Cem is an exceptional journalist who traces the dramatic life stories of people but wounded with a failure in his career, the unsuccessful attempt to solve the mystery of robbery of Sacred Relics in Topkapi Palace. Now, he quitted job and becomes a dedicated nurse to his beloved wife Serap with absolute isolation from the outer world. He is trapped into a strictly planned daily routine at home: reading newspapers to Serap, talking to unconscious woman, cleaning her lovely but mute body, cooking as if she can eat. The psychological stress on Cem deteriorates his states of mind. Imaginary conversations with Serap, hopeless investigations on brain and soul, and his reflections on the strange symmetries of their life transform his mental health gradually. The desperate love story grows to be the battle ground of science and mystic forces. Cem is trying to apply his investigation techniques to his story this time. Observer and the protagonist overlap onto each other and the whole picture in his mind is blurred with sorrow. In the midst of this delirium, a romantic love letter from his young enthusiastic trainee Aslý unchains his inhibited desires and invites him to a new life. A hidden sign engraved to the wall of a mosque built by the great architect Sinan centuries ago will be the departure point for this new adventure. It is the call of life and excitement. But, Serap is suspended between life and death; and her tragic condition turns to be an unbearable obstacle for new possibilities of life for Cem. On the other hand, Aslý builds up a fascinating story of struggle between East and West through architecture by tracing the meaning of ‘inverted tulip’ as Mother Mary. Cem spends all of his energy for resisting this temptation. A final visitor from distant past appears at the end of that long sorrowful day and he mirrors Cem’s essential conflict. The novel explores the new condition of modern man: suspended between life and death, East and West, science and belief, love and despair.
I am the Bad Guy of the Movie
Yunus Nadi Novel Prize
The main character, the middle age writer manqué, Önder and his wife Defne have moved to a beautiful Aegean village to live in peace. His aim is to write a novel here far from the Istanbul’s chaotic city life. His motivation is to prove himself to his dead father who was a physicist dedicated himself to the modernization of Turkey. Önder could not follow his father’s way; he failed in university and feels himself as a loser. Now, in this peaceful village, he will write a great novel and will find his way in life. I am the Bad Guy of the Movie is consisting of alternating chapters of Önder’s life and his novel. Interestingly, the novel in the novel is about Önder’s life five years ago. Önder in his novel has fallen in a love triangle, whereas in real life his marriage is collapsing. The son in the novel is betrayed; Önder is the one who betrays in his life. Two exciting plots are running parallel to each other by showing that to be victim or the winner are just two different phases of life. Writing experience in postmodern era transforms Önder from naïve buildingsroman character to the bad guy cliché. His dead father image becomes the allegory of the founder figure of modern Turkish Republic and Önder himself becomes the parody of the insufficient and hopeless postmodern intellectual.
Steal This Book
Sait Faik Short Story Award
Steal This Book, creates a feeling of integrity, although it includes seemingly independent stories. Supposing the reality turning into a fictive thing and fiction spreading to all domains of life, Gülsoy pushes the limits of fictive domain and demands active participation of the reader. In many of his stories, reality and fiction telescope, he plays games with the theme he has, surprises the reader continuously. Steal This Book is translated in German and published by Literaturca in 2007.
Deja vu
short stories
Dreams, imagery, delusions, repeating moments, mental illusions, lived and re-lived or supposed to be lived moments… Murat Gülsoy takes the reader to the world of mysterious signs, events, and imagery through a transparent narrative.
Continuity of the Realms and the Other Stories
“Neither that night, nor another night… I thought vastly after that. This story cannot end like this. Yes, I have no evidence in my hand; yes, I couldn’t find the way to the district again, which I have found miraculously that day; yes, my phone didn’t ring again… But still I have a hope. I don’t know who called and gave that address yet. The mysterious person who refreshed a dead story can do this again; can give me one more opportunity. If I can wish enough, and can be patient enough… Since there is someone who thinks about me… Even if I don’t know who, it is worth waiting! Because, the thing that was, can be once more. What is lived once can be lived again. Without this hope, what would be the meaning of life?” Irony and literary games unveils the mystery of daily life in modern Turkey.
Letters of One Thousand and One Nights
short stories
By an extremely free narration, while opening the doors to inner worlds of people that we both are stranger to, and at the same time feel intimate, unchains our locked emotions, obsessions, fears and fantasies. Telescoping stories demonstrate that we all have other stories behind our stories. Every story creates its own truth and in that truth we advance, by owning the story.
But Everybody is Busy with Himself
short stories
These stories are predominantly concentrated on two themes: game and writing. An outstanding characteristic in Murat Gülsoy’s stories is his frequent accommodation of irony and black humor. In my stories I like to amaze people, says Gülsoy, by accommodating unexpected, surprising endings and interesting fiction. Even if the stories that begin from imagery keep close to fantastical fictions and deliver a feeling of continuity, the writer enjoys different attempts in each story.
Disenchanment: Creative Writing
essays
Critical essays on creative writing techniques.