{"product_id":"waiting-for-the-fear-oguz-atay-paperback","title":"Waiting for the Fear -- Oguz Atay, Paperback","description":"\u003cb\u003eShort stories about people on the margins, from story peddlers to beggars, by one of Turkey's most innovative fiction writers, now in a new English translation.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAdored in Turkey for his post-modern fiction and regarded internationally as one of Turkey's greatest writers, Oğuz Atay remains largely untranslated into English. First published in 1975, \u003ci\u003eWaiting for the Fear\u003c\/i\u003e is Atay's only collection of short stories, a book that is routinely praised in Turkey, by, among others, the Nobel Prizewinner Orhan Pamuk, for having transformed the art of short fiction. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe eight stories that the book contains, all of them focused on characters living on the margins of society, are dramatic and even tragic, while also being shot through with irony and a humor. In the title story, a nameless young man, of a thoughtful and misanthropic turn of mind, returns to his home on the outskirts of an enormous nameless city to find waiting for him a letter in a foreign language of which he has no knowledge at all, and from this anomalous, if seemingly trivial, turn of events, one thing after another unfolds with stark inevitablity. Another story nods to Gogol's \"The Overcoat\" its hero is a speechless beggar wandering around the back streets of Istanbul dressed in a woman's fur coat who will end up stuck in a shop window like a manikin. Elsewhere, a professional story peddler lives in a hut beside a train station in a country that is at war--unless it isn't. He can't remember. What do such life and death realities matter, however, so long as there are stories to tell? Atay's stories are full of a vivid sense of life's absurdities while also being psychologically true to life; his characters, oddballs and losers all, are also utterly individual with distinctive voices of their own, now plainspoken, wistful, womanly, now sophisticated and acerbic, with a dangerous swagger. And if Atay is a brilliant examiner of the inner life, he is no less aware of the flawed social world in which his people struggle to make their way \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eWaiting for the Fear\u003c\/i\u003e is a book that, page by beguiling page, holds the reader's attention from beginning to end, the rare collection of short stories that not only reflects a unique authorial vision but reads like a pageturner. Ralph Hubbell's new translation will introduce readers of English to a still insufficiently known giant of modern Turkish and world literature.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Oguz Atay\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/22\/2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.81lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781681377964\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 07\/15\/2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOğuz Atay\u003c\/b\u003e (1934-1977) was a Turkish modernist writer. His experimental, linguistically complex novels earned him a reputation as one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century Turkish literature and a pioneer of the modern Turkish novel. He published two novels in the 1970s, \u003ci\u003eThe Disconnected\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDangerous Games\u003c\/i\u003e, and wrote several other short stories and plays. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eRalph Hubbell\u003c\/b\u003e is a translator of Turkish literature and writer. His fiction, essays, and translations have appeared in the \u003ci\u003eSun\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eTin House, Asymptote\u003c\/i\u003e, and elsewhere. He teaches at Loyola University Maryland and lives in Baltimore. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eMerve Emre \u003c\/b\u003eis the author or editor of several books, including \u003ci\u003eParaliterary: The Making of Bad Readers in Postwar America, The Ferrante Letters, The Personality Brokers\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Annotated Mrs. Dalloway. \u003c\/i\u003e She is a contributing writer at \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e and her essays and criticism have appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books, Harper's, The Atlantic, The London Review of Books \u003c\/i\u003eand many other publications. She teaches at Wesleyan University.","brand":"Oguz Atay","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45690188267748,"sku":"9781681377964","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0611\/9587\/8628\/files\/9781681377964.jpg?v=1781760685","url":"https:\/\/bookandmortar.com\/products\/waiting-for-the-fear-oguz-atay-paperback","provider":"BookandMortar","version":"1.0","type":"link"}