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Istanbul in the Turkish Novel: Ambiguity and Resistance

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The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban Literary Studies

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Abstract

In the Turkish literary tradition, Istanbul has been a contested space of identities, ideologies, and histories as well as of cultural memory, particularly since the 2000s, when “the right to the city” becomes even more politicized than ever before (Lefebvre 1996). This chapter centers on the contemporary Turkish novel and presents an overview of recurring themes, character types, and common literary tropes which manifest Istanbul as “a city of cultural ambiguity” (Almas 2016). It also argues that certain depictions of the city are recruited and deployed to articulate cultural resistance. In the final section, we elaborate on Elif Shafak’s fiction – and her use of the bridge metaphor in particular – to illustrate the semantics of ambiguity and resistance that have characterized depictions of Istanbul in contemporary Turkish fiction.

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Acknowledgement

Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – Project numbers 411017845 and 410915746.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

    Elena Furlanetto

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  1. Elena Furlanetto
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  2. Zeynep Tüfekçioğlu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elena Furlanetto .

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  1. London, UK

    Jeremy Tambling

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Furlanetto, E., Tüfekçioğlu, Z. (2021). Istanbul in the Turkish Novel: Ambiguity and Resistance. In: Tambling, J. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban Literary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62592-8_199-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62592-8_199-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-62592-8

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