Overview

Turkey is a land torn between East and West, between its glorious past and a dangerous, unpredictable future. After the violence of an attempted military coup against President Erdogan in 2016, an event which shocked the world, journalist and novelist Kaya Genç travelled around his country on a quest to find the places and people in whom the contrasts of Turkey’s rich past meet. As suicide bombers attack Istanbul, and journalists and teachers are imprisoned, he walks the streets of the famous Ottoman neighbourhoods, telling the stories of the ordinary Turks who live among the contradictions and conflicts of Anatolia, one of the world's oldest civilizations. Featuring new material on the 2023 elections, The Lion and the Nightingale presents the spellbinding story of a country whose history has been split between East and West, between violence and beauty - between the roar of the lion and the song of the nightingale. Weaving together a mixture of memoir, interview and his own autobiography, Genç takes the reader on a contemporary journey through the contradictory soul of the Turkish nation.

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9781350436770

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Reviews

"""The individual narratives of the people Genç writes about, or through, compose the book's story as a whole while situating it within the fluctuating political atmosphere of the country. This anchoring moves the reader through various human experiences - disappointment, failure, representation - with thorough exploration and deep empathy, while also examining potential future projections of a young nation."" --Full Stop ""His English has a clear, distanced perceptivity underscored by his cultural and linguistic objectivity. The Lion and the Nightingale, however, enters deeply into the work of fellow Turkish journalists who write in Turkish, with special empathy for their struggles, personalities, and careers on the other side of a distinctly opaque language barrier."" --The Millions ""Usefully grounds Turkish current affairs in the context of the past couple of decades and explains the attraction of extreme politics to the country's youth"" --Times Literary Supplement ""Whether he's putting us in the shoes of Binevs, a Kurdish cleaner, or Özge Ersoy, a Turkish curator living in Hong Kong, Genç conveys the on-the-ground experience with great empathetic clarity. The Lion and the Nightingale reminds us that, now more than ever, anything that clouds our vision - be it ignorance, credulity, cliché, fluff, propaganda, the silencing of journalists, fake news, romanticism - must be urgently dissipated."" --Culture Trip ""The brilliant Kaya Genç returns again to examine modern Turkey with his blend of deep historical learning, on-the-ground reporting, and hard-won, convention-defying nuance."" --Molly Crabapple, author of 'Drawing Blood' """"In this masterful chronicle of Turkey, Genc sketches extraordinary lives in an extraordinary time. Intimate, intelligent, detailed, full of life: It will become a classic."""" --Andrew Greer, author of 'Less' - 2018 Pulitzer Prize winner ""Provides the reader with great insight into the lives of the characters that Genç has chosen to portray ... Genç has penetrated the soul of Turkey."" --Politics, Religion & Ideology ""The Lion and the Nightingale is reliably neutral in its assessment of Turkey's political spectrum, critical of the shortcomings and benefits on both sides, and aware of how, in Turkey, they remarkably overlap and occupy each other's space according to the changing guards of what might be called, simply, the power establishment."" --The Fortnightly Review ""Captures the uncertainty of 2017. . . . [Genc's] account expertly weaves the details of individual lives into a historical tapestry, and each person's experiences illuminate larger changes in Turkish society happening that year. Genc's skill lies in his ability to go beyond a simple indictment of the repressive state for crushing creativity. He is aware of the privilege of his own position, the guilty comfort strongman rule can offer, and the dogmatism present both in opposition political movements as well as those in power. In his telling, Turkey emerges as a collection of perspectives and concerns--not simply the domineering tendences of one man."" --Foreign Policy ""In 2017, Turkish voters narrowly approved a referendum championed by Erdogan to transform the country from a parliamentary to a presidential system. The plebiscite came less than a year after an attempted coup and during a state of emergency that would continue until mid-2018. Voters were told that a strong executive would bring Turkey security and stability. But many also feared the restrictions that stability might bring. Kaya Genc, a Turkish novelist, translator, and journalist, captures the uncertainty of 2017 in The Lion and the Nightingale: A Journey Through Modern Turkey. He presents nearly a dozen profiles of ""nightingales"" - artists, actors, and writers, including himself--who want to experience the beauty of their country but cannot escape the presence of the ""lion"" that is state power. His account expertly weaves the details of individual lives into a historical tapestry, and each person's experiences illuminate larger changes in Turkish society happening that year. Genc's skill lies in his ability to go beyond a simple indictment of the repressive state for crushing creativity. He is aware of the privilege of his own position, the guilty comfort strongman rule can offer, and the dogmatism present both in opposition political movements as well as among those in power. In his telling, Turkey emerges as a collection of perspectives and concerns- not simply the domineering tendences of one man."" --Reuben Silverman, researcher at Stockholm University's Institute for Turkish Studies"

"The individual narratives of the people Genç writes about, or through, compose the book’s story as a whole while situating it within the fluctuating political atmosphere of the country. This anchoring moves the reader through various human experiences — disappointment, failure, representation — with thorough exploration and deep empathy, while also examining potential future projections of a young nation. * Full Stop * His English has a clear, distanced perceptivity underscored by his cultural and linguistic objectivity. The Lion and the Nightingale, however, enters deeply into the work of fellow Turkish journalists who write in Turkish, with special empathy for their struggles, personalities, and careers on the other side of a distinctly opaque language barrier. * The Millions * Usefully grounds Turkish current affairs in the context of the past couple of decades and explains the attraction of extreme politics to the country's youth * Times Literary Supplement * Whether he’s putting us in the shoes of Binevs, a Kurdish cleaner, or Özge Ersoy, a Turkish curator living in Hong Kong, Genç conveys the on-the-ground experience with great empathetic clarity. The Lion and the Nightingale reminds us that, now more than ever, anything that clouds our vision – be it ignorance, credulity, cliché, fluff, propaganda, the silencing of journalists, fake news, romanticism – must be urgently dissipated. * Culture Trip * The brilliant Kaya Genç returns again to examine modern Turkey with his blend of deep historical learning, on-the-ground reporting, and hard-won, convention-defying nuance. * Molly Crabapple, author of 'Drawing Blood' * “In this masterful chronicle of Turkey, Genc sketches extraordinary lives in an extraordinary time. Intimate, intelligent, detailed, full of life: It will become a classic."" * Andrew Greer, author of 'Less' - 2018 Pulitzer Prize winner * Provides the reader with great insight into the lives of the characters that Genç has chosen to portray ... Genç has penetrated the soul of Turkey. * Politics, Religion & Ideology * The Lion and the Nightingale is reliably neutral in its assessment of Turkey’s political spectrum, critical of the shortcomings and benefits on both sides, and aware of how, in Turkey, they remarkably overlap and occupy each other’s space according to the changing guards of what might be called, simply, the power establishment. * The Fortnightly Review * Captures the uncertainty of 2017. . . . [Genc's] account expertly weaves the details of individual lives into a historical tapestry, and each person's experiences illuminate larger changes in Turkish society happening that year. Genc's skill lies in his ability to go beyond a simple indictment of the repressive state for crushing creativity. He is aware of the privilege of his own position, the guilty comfort strongman rule can offer, and the dogmatism present both in opposition political movements as well as those in power. In his telling, Turkey emerges as a collection of perspectives and concerns--not simply the domineering tendences of one man. * Foreign Policy * In 2017, Turkish voters narrowly approved a referendum championed by Erdogan to transform the country from a parliamentary to a presidential system. The plebiscite came less than a year after an attempted coup and during a state of emergency that would continue until mid-2018. Voters were told that a strong executive would bring Turkey security and stability. But many also feared the restrictions that stability might bring. Kaya Genc, a Turkish novelist, translator, and journalist, captures the uncertainty of 2017 in The Lion and the Nightingale: A Journey Through Modern Turkey. He presents nearly a dozen profiles of ""nightingales"" - artists, actors, and writers, including himself--who want to experience the beauty of their country but cannot escape the presence of the ""lion"" that is state power. His account expertly weaves the details of individual lives into a historical tapestry, and each person's experiences illuminate larger changes in Turkish society happening that year. Genc's skill lies in his ability to go beyond a simple indictment of the repressive state for crushing creativity. He is aware of the privilege of his own position, the guilty comfort strongman rule can offer, and the dogmatism present both in opposition political movements as well as among those in power. In his telling, Turkey emerges as a collection of perspectives and concerns- not simply the domineering tendences of one man. * Reuben Silverman, researcher at Stockholm University's Institute for Turkish Studies *"

Author Information

Kaya Genç is a novelist and essayist from Istanbul whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The London Review of Books, Salon, Guernica Magazine, Sight & Sound, The Millions, The White Review and TIME Magazine, among others. His first novel, L Avventura was published in 2008. Kaya has a PhD in English literature and is the Istanbul correspondent of The LA Review of Books as well as a contributing editor at Index on Censorship. He has written a history of Turkish literature for Harvard University Press, and is the author of Under the Shadow (I.B.Tauris, 2017), an account of the Gezi Park uprisings and the coup attempt of December, 2016. He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books.

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