Classes & Seminars

This Delve seminar looks at two acclaimed authors of modern Turkish literature and their dystopian novels, The Black Book and Night. Dystopian narratives portray oppressive systems, and they display a deep suspicion of power structures and their alliance with scientific progress and technology. Published in 1985 in the aftermath of a brutal military coup in Turkey, Night depicts a violent secretive regime set out to murder its dissidents. Dystopian imagery of an unnamed city is permeated with dismembered bodies, silence, and angst. Reminiscent of Kafka’s works, Night raises the question of the relationship between power and justice. The multiple narrators of Night with their ever-shifting identities leave the reader with a profound sense of uncertainty. In a similar vein to Night, The Black Book (1990),…