Over & Back: A High School Girls Basketball Team Navigates Life in Modern Turkey

by Andrew W. Jones

Too short. Too skinny. Too far from home. Too shy. Too out of place. These don’t sound like the adjectives anyone would use to describe a basketball team. Especially not a girls high school basketball team in Turkey, a country where many would say girls aren’t supposed to be playing sports in the first place. But these girls aren’t your ordinary Turkish girls. Over & Back tells the true story of a Turkish girls basketball team fighting not only to win games, but to win respect as female athletes in a country that all too often sees the phrase female athlete as an oxymoron. In a turbulent time where Turkey’s president has declared that it’s against nature for men and women to be equal, this book follows an inspirational group of girls who defy societal norms both on and off the basketball court. They square off against basketball opponents in Istanbul and an even more powerful opponent, a society that says they should remain in the background and be dependent on men.

246 pages, Paperback

Published February 10, 2021