Erkekler Kitabı, Esquire dergisi ve dünyanın dört bir yanından insan hikâyeleri toplayarak köprüler kurmayı hedefleyen Narrative 4 organizasyonunun projesi kapsamında oluşturulan seksen yazarlı bir Colum McCann seçkisi. Aralarında John Berger, Salman Rushdie,
Geoff Dyer ve Khaled Hosseini gibi isimlerin de bulunduğu yazarlar erkekliğin kaygan zemininde dolaşıyor ve erkek olmanın ne anlama geldiği üzerine düşünüyor.
Bazı erkekler öğrenirken bazıları gerekli dersleri alamıyor, bazıları başarılı bazıları yenilmiş, bazıları yolunu kaybetmiş bazılarıysa nereye varmak istediğini iyi biliyor…
Bu metinler yalnızca erkeklik ve nasıl erkek olunur hakkında değil, aynı zamanda bütün karmaşıklığı, belirsizliği, hataları ve güzelliğiyle insan olmak hakkında.
Farklı kökenlere ve tarzlara sahip yazarların bir araya geldiği Erkekler Kitabı, “bir erkeği erkek yapan nedir” sorusuna çok sesli bir yanıt niteliğinde.
Colum McCann is the author of three collections of short stories and six novels, including "Apeirogon," published in Spring 2020. His other books include "TransAtlantic," "Let the Great World Spin," "This Side of Brightness,""Dancer" and “Zoli,” all of which were international best-sellers.
His newest book, American Mother, written with Diane Foley, is due to be published in March 2024.
American Mother takes us deep into the story of Diane Foley; whose son Jim, a freelance journalist, was held captive by ISIS before being beheaded in the Syrian desert. Diane’s voice is channeled into searing reality by Colum, who brings us on a journey of strength, resilience, and radical empathy.
"American Mother is a book that will shake your soul out," says Sting.
Apeirogon (2020) became a best-seller on four continent.
“Let the Great World Spin” won the National Book Award in 2009. His fiction has been published in over 40 languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Paris Review and other places. He has written for numerous publications including The Irish Times, Die Zeit, La Republicca, Paris Match, The New York Times, the Guardian and the Independent.
In December 2023 Colum (as co-founder of Narrative 4) was the 2023 Humanitarian Award nominee, awarded by the United Nations delegations at the Ambassador's Ball in New York City.
Colum has won numerous international awards. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the Irish association of artists, Aosdana. He has also received a Chevalier des Artes et des Lettres from the French government. He is the cofounder of the global non-profit story exchange organisation Narrative 4.
In 2003 Colum was named Esquire magazine's "Writer of the Year." Other awards and honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Rooney Prize, the Irish Independent Hughes and Hughes/Sunday Independent Novel of the Year 2003, and the 2002 Ireland Fund of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award. He was recently inducted into the Hennessy Hall of Fame for Irish Literature.
His short film "Everything in this Country Must," directed by Gary McKendry, was nominated for an Academy Award Oscar in 2005.
Colum was born in Dublin in 1965 and began his career as a journalist in The Irish Press. In the early 1980's he took a bicycle across North America and then worked as a wilderness guide in a program for juvenile delinquents in Texas. After a year and a half in Japan, he and his wife Allison moved to New York where they currently live with their three children, Isabella, John Michael and Christian.
Colum teaches in Hunter College in New York, in the Creative Writing program, with fellow novelists Peter Carey and Tea Obreht.
Colum has completed his new novel, "Apeirogon." Crafted out of a universe of fictional and nonfictional material, McCann tells the story of Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan. One is Israeli. One is Palestinian. Both are fathers. Both have lost their daughters to the conflict. When Bassam and Rami learn of each other's stories they recognize the loss that connects them, and they begin to use their grief as a weapon for peace.
In the novel McCann crosses centuries and continents. He stitches together time, art, history, nature and politics in a tale both heartbreaking and hopeful. Musical, cinematic, muscular, delicate and soaring, Apeirogon is a novel for our times.
It is scheduled for release in the U.S in February 2020.
Advance copies will be available here on GoodReads!!!!
An interesting collection of writing by eighty different writers (both male and female) about "how to be a man". Some of these were really good, but most of these were just ok. Some of them I even actively disliked.
Here's what I really liked: - the essays that sum up a feeling really well (David Gilbert and Khaled Hosseini) - the essays that are one paragraph, but end up somehow being better than the long, vague ones (Ron Carlson's was my favorite) - the ones that make sure you remember that being a man isn't all smoked meats and Axe body wash (Liz Moore has a good one)
However, I think there might be something inherently wrong about the approach of getting 80 of the world's 'best writers' to each contribute one essay. It's like getting a bunch of the smartest people in the world in one room. They'd be even more insufferable than usual, because they would all be trying to show each other up.
Here's what I wish there had been less of: - essays where it's really unclear what's happening, until the very end. I get that you're going for that thing where the reader feels like the wool got lifted up over their eyes at the end, but when 1/5 of the essays try to do this (and most of them not particularly well), it starts feeling like everyone is trying too hard. - the vague 'what are you even talking about' story. Being a man is mysterious. That's part of the point, I'm sure. But do we really need essays that start like this? "She walked around me three times. Each revolution took about half an hour. On the first pass, I saw black waterproof boots and pants. Second pass, a bright orange parka, hood up." I'm sorry but what the fuck are you even talking about? - When they try to make their essay a poem. It's an essay, not a poem. There also isn't so much happening that you need to mark off sections with roman numerals so that the reader knows that a different thing is happening each paragraph. Your 300-word essay doesn't need a line break between each short , vague sentence that you wrote, just so the reader has a 'pause'. This is the essayist equivalent of how rappers drop a clever reference, and then feel the need to ask 'get it?'. We get it. Or don't.
They say that the act of great writing is subtractive, not additive (Zinsser). Cut this down to the 20 best, and I'd have given it 5 stars. My advice for anyone reading these is to trust your gut when reading, and feel free to skip ones that you sense are trying a little too hard. You're probably right.
80 yazar,80 öykü, tek konu: erkek’lik algısı. . Baba,eş,evlat,arkadaş,kardeş..Hangi sıfatla adlandırılırsa adlandırılsın; içinde yaşadığımız toplumlar tarafından yüklenilmiş ve tanımlandırılmaya çalışılan roller mevcut. Kadın-erkek olarak değil, kadınlık-erkeklik üzerine koyulan her isim aslında birer tuğla omuzlarımıza yüklenen. ‘Erkek isen çalış ve aileni geçindir. Erkek isen arkanda evlatlar bırak. Erkek isen ağlama. Erkek isen baskın ol.’ Yap-yapma temelli dayatmaların sadece kadınlar için değil erkekler üzerinde de olduğunu gösteren öyküleri okumak iyi bir deneyim. İçerisinde sağlam öyküler olduğu gibi, gölgede kalanlar da yok değil. Ancak derleme kitaplarının da en belirgin özelliği: çeşitlilik~ . Colum McCann,Narrative 4 ve Esquire editörlerinin ortak çalışması olan bu eserde John Berger, Etgar Keret, Salman Rushdie,Khalid Hosseini gibi kalemler bulunmakta.. Roller ve beden üzerinden ayrımcılık değil; eşitlik ve ‘birey’ olma bilinci ile nefes alma dileğiyle...
Dünyanın her bir yanından, içinde bir çok ünlü yazarında olduğu çeşitli kısa hikayelerin derlemesi. Bazıları sizi yumruk yemiş gibi sarsıyor, bazılar ise güldürüyor. Ortaklığı sağlayan tema ise 'erkeklik' üzerine; ama dünyanın çeşitliliği, kültürlerin farklılığı düşünüldüğünde bununda çok muğlak kaldığı, insanlık hali üzerine olduğu görülüyor. Özellikle kısa hikayeleri seviyorsanız, mükemmel bir derleme.
I was very excited to read this book after seeing it on a shelf at my local bookstore. The idea in practice sound appealing, even the idea of getting writers to contribute. This book may have broad appeal, but was overall quite disappointing as the content did not appear to ascribe in the least to the title of the book. This book does contain some beautiful and pertinent essays. Yet, it also include a range of essays to which the writers are either indulgent, unclear, or vague. Some essays near push an agenda rather than reflect upon the uniqueness of maleness. This book could have been vibrant and pertinent in the changing landscape of modern masculinity, yet falls flat due to the incongruence between its title and what is between the covers.
A collection of very short stories by 80 authors. The stories average to about 2-3 pages a piece. Some are very straightforward on the pressure and expectations of men. Some are very explicit with violence or graphic sexual tones. Some stories are almost poetic and metaphorical - it really gets you thinking.
Overall after finishing the book, I still cannot answer "how to be a man". I am instead left with many new memories and experiences that are not my own. And an appreciation of these authors' honesty.
I simply love the idea of the book and enjoy reading small pieces of writing from different authors with different backgrounds. It is probably weird for the readers as it is hard to be coherent reading writing pieces with different style and tone, but it's definitely a new experience and I look forward to more of its kind.
I read this while sick in bed, so my full faculties may not have been engaged. I found many of the short (some very short) pieces completely inscrutable. Weird book.
This book contains many short stories, written by eighty contemporary writers, with the theme of what it means to be a man. The stories are written by both men and women and there are a lot of different interpretations. Overall it was a good collection but some of the stories were a little too short so that I didn't even really know what was going on. Some were very cliched because of the short length and there were a few abrupt endings which felt awkward. My favorite story was definitely Ian McEwan's.
Like most anthologies, this is a mixed bag. There is some beautiful writing in it -- some that sticks to the theme, some that doesn't -- as well as a couple of tiresomely showoffy pieces, which fit those same descriptions. Interesting to see what the writers do within the constraints of space. See also the wonderful website The Good Men Project: more to the point and often quite well-written.
This is a clever grab-bag of essays, flash fiction, and slices-of-life, most of them no more than a few pages, perfect for travel. If you're expecting a self-help manual, look elsewhere. Good writing. Illuminating. Disturbing. Witty and weird and wild.
This book to me just really wasn't my taste. It may work for others but not for me. It is supposed to be a collection of great writers about how to be a man but ends up being self indulgent essays with more fluff than content.
I really like this revelatory, dangerous, humble, entertaining, moving collection: like wandering through an art gallery of male nudes as seen from the inside out...
A collection of short stories that stirred something in me. Perhaps it was the title; maybe the content of various stories evoked my own question about what it means to be a man. If I was to bring nothing back from New York but this book, it would still be a worthwhile trip.