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Root and Branch: Essays on Inheritance
"That there is no easy translation for ‘awkward’ in other languages suggests that I’m only myself in English. This feels like a loss, because I’d like to think of myself as Turkish, too. There is a Turkish saying that one’s home is not where one is born, but where one grows full – dogdugun yer degil, doydugun yer." Mixing the personal and political, Eda Gunaydin’s bold and innovative writing explores race, class, gender and violence, and Turkish diaspora. Equal parts piercing, tender, and funny, this book takes us from an overworked and underpaid café job in Western Sydney, the mother-daughter tradition of sharing a meal in the local kebab shop, to the legacies of family migration, and intergenerational trauma. Root and Branch seeks to unsettle neat descriptions of belonging and place. What are the legacies of migration, apart from loss? And how do we find comfort in where we are?
288 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2022
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May 14, 2022Eda Gunaydin’s debut concerns humiliation. All the varieties – take your pick. The humiliation of migration. The humiliation of nightclubbing. The humiliation of distance from one’s parents. And finally – perhaps most humiliating of all – the humiliation of feeling you do not even deserve to feel humiliated. “What do you need a psychologist for?” her mother asks. “You haven’t seen the things I’ve seen.” Gunaydin doesn’t deny it.
“[W]hy me? Who am I to be okay? Why shouldn’t I follow – what aren’t I following – the trajectory of others in my family?” A friend asks her what it’s like to be “the first generation in my family to have healed from decades of trauma and poverty”. What it’s like, it turns out, is post-traumatic stress disorder (her therapist certainly thinks so). “Survivor’s guilt makes you believe simultaneously that you are the best and the worst person alive”, she writes. “[W]hat’s crucial is that you feel unlike anyone else that exists, fundamentally marked out”.
This sense of stigma fuels Root & Branch. At the careening, whirring, eye-of-the-hurricane centre of that stigma – Gunaydin’s mother. Gunaydin variously describes her as emotionally abusive and a hypochondriac whose illnesses, both real and imagined, prompt her to regularly inform friends of her imminent demise. Aged 12, Gunaydin, asking her mother if she can see a psychologist, is in turn asked by her mother exactly how she has failed her as a parent – before insisting that, after injuring her spine pushing young Eda in a pram, “[i]f anyone should be unhappy, it’s me”. Gunaydin responds diplomatically: “We can both be unhappy.″
“[A]nd so it was”, she concludes. Her father seeks respite intermittently from Eda’s mother and at other times provides respite from her for Eda. Asking her therapist if he is a bad person, her therapist informs her that there are no bad people, “just bad coping mechanisms”.
“Bad coping mechanisms” could be Root and Branch’s subtitle. Gunaydin hungers for the parenting she was denied, for validation, a way to avoid fearing that nothing she ever is or does will be good enough. In ‘Kalıtsal’ – a highlight – she describes the profound isolation of intergenerational trauma, the third-culture kid’s sense of having both to pre-emptively eulogise and admit defeat before it can admit itself. “Even if I were to catch a bird out of the air in my mouth I couldn’t have satisfied her,” she recalls her mother saying of her grandmother. “But still she crawled, and crawled, after her [...] in a way that we don’t crawl after her. She was so disappointed, and I couldn’t tell if it was in herself or me.”
Continue reading:
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/...
“[W]hy me? Who am I to be okay? Why shouldn’t I follow – what aren’t I following – the trajectory of others in my family?” A friend asks her what it’s like to be “the first generation in my family to have healed from decades of trauma and poverty”. What it’s like, it turns out, is post-traumatic stress disorder (her therapist certainly thinks so). “Survivor’s guilt makes you believe simultaneously that you are the best and the worst person alive”, she writes. “[W]hat’s crucial is that you feel unlike anyone else that exists, fundamentally marked out”.
This sense of stigma fuels Root & Branch. At the careening, whirring, eye-of-the-hurricane centre of that stigma – Gunaydin’s mother. Gunaydin variously describes her as emotionally abusive and a hypochondriac whose illnesses, both real and imagined, prompt her to regularly inform friends of her imminent demise. Aged 12, Gunaydin, asking her mother if she can see a psychologist, is in turn asked by her mother exactly how she has failed her as a parent – before insisting that, after injuring her spine pushing young Eda in a pram, “[i]f anyone should be unhappy, it’s me”. Gunaydin responds diplomatically: “We can both be unhappy.″
“[A]nd so it was”, she concludes. Her father seeks respite intermittently from Eda’s mother and at other times provides respite from her for Eda. Asking her therapist if he is a bad person, her therapist informs her that there are no bad people, “just bad coping mechanisms”.
“Bad coping mechanisms” could be Root and Branch’s subtitle. Gunaydin hungers for the parenting she was denied, for validation, a way to avoid fearing that nothing she ever is or does will be good enough. In ‘Kalıtsal’ – a highlight – she describes the profound isolation of intergenerational trauma, the third-culture kid’s sense of having both to pre-emptively eulogise and admit defeat before it can admit itself. “Even if I were to catch a bird out of the air in my mouth I couldn’t have satisfied her,” she recalls her mother saying of her grandmother. “But still she crawled, and crawled, after her [...] in a way that we don’t crawl after her. She was so disappointed, and I couldn’t tell if it was in herself or me.”
Continue reading:
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/...
April 1, 2022
'My name, Eda, is drawn from a common Turkish prayer, which asks from Allah for healing for the sick, succour for the distressed, and repayment for the indebted. That last part, relief from or repayment of debt, is what Eda means. Although others have found it a little humorous when I have explained it to them in the past - 'Your name is more, well, financial than I expected' - I appreciate its grounding in the material.’ (p.146)
And I am indebted to Eda Gunaydin for being a better thinker than I am. At turns insightful, funny, excoriating and hopeful, you absolutely need this collection in your life.
And I am indebted to Eda Gunaydin for being a better thinker than I am. At turns insightful, funny, excoriating and hopeful, you absolutely need this collection in your life.
November 2, 2022
Gunaydin reminded me of how much I love to read, write and absorb the society that operates miraculously around me. Root and Branch is exactly why I want to publish something like this one day. It is all encompassing in it’s subject matter, yet so painstakingly specific. Although one or two essays weren’t particularly engaging, the rest, especially her final one, had me lost for words. The art of the essay form, a form that can exist with sardonic humour, transparency and devotion to self, has truly become reinvented in recent years by writers like Gunaydin.
Also, she shortlisted one of my essays for a competition once so EEEKKK
Also, she shortlisted one of my essays for a competition once so EEEKKK
May 26, 2022
A fantastic essay collection on wide-ranging themes such as intergenerational trauma, migration, anxiety, the complexities of gentrification on stolen land, and the politics of brunch. Thoroughly researched and packed densely with ideas, but with an inviting and very readable style that draws you in and helps bridge different understandings and perspectives on each of these themes as the author considers them.
February 25, 2023
"Within a singularly confessing society, being a confessing individual is not so singular. It is the price of entry: I pay it in order to exist."
Throughout this essay collection is a sense of displacement, of a self not fitting. Gunaydin struggles with needing therapy but feeling like she shouldn't. She struggles with feeling at home when she feels she shouldn't. There is stigma, especially in success. Part of a wave of young third culture writers writing about identity, this Gunaydin is explicitly political and admirably analytical, trying her own sense of self to the social forces around her. There is a subtle restraint in most of the collection. Still, occasionally she lets loose with what she can do with overanalysing: the section on brunch or casually throwing around the cult memoir she will not write. I liked the last two essays the most, perhaps the least introspective, which are tightly focused on a particular topic.
Throughout this essay collection is a sense of displacement, of a self not fitting. Gunaydin struggles with needing therapy but feeling like she shouldn't. She struggles with feeling at home when she feels she shouldn't. There is stigma, especially in success. Part of a wave of young third culture writers writing about identity, this Gunaydin is explicitly political and admirably analytical, trying her own sense of self to the social forces around her. There is a subtle restraint in most of the collection. Still, occasionally she lets loose with what she can do with overanalysing: the section on brunch or casually throwing around the cult memoir she will not write. I liked the last two essays the most, perhaps the least introspective, which are tightly focused on a particular topic.
July 15, 2023
this is such an amazing collection of essays!
it tackles identity, gentrification and intergenerational trauma under the lens of a person from a migrant family.
i think these kinds of insights are super useful to read as a way to reflect on australianess and what that actually means!! and also how changing societal values are detrimental to people's racial identity through the perception of others.
it tackles identity, gentrification and intergenerational trauma under the lens of a person from a migrant family.
i think these kinds of insights are super useful to read as a way to reflect on australianess and what that actually means!! and also how changing societal values are detrimental to people's racial identity through the perception of others.
May 22, 2024
There’s some apparent brilliance in this collection, moments of writing which overcomes and overwhelms, but as a totality it falls over under its own weight
I have very real critique of her affect as failing to be an aspirational call to arms. At times there’s a disconnect between theory, tone and praxis.
Ultimately necessary though as part of a broader reconsideration of place and politics that Australian class consciousness needs
I have very real critique of her affect as failing to be an aspirational call to arms. At times there’s a disconnect between theory, tone and praxis.
Ultimately necessary though as part of a broader reconsideration of place and politics that Australian class consciousness needs
July 10, 2022
ROOT & BRANCH speaks directly to the second generation immigrant, specifically the Australian who, despite having been born and raised in this country, feels like they’re still seen as an outsider.
Gunaydin’s essays are written with a scholarly ease; clever with a wry, sometimes acerbic, sense of humour. There’s a touch of melodrama in some pieces, a splash of weighty intellectualism in others. Broadly speaking, her essays touch on race relations, colonialism, classism, diaspora and identity, while introspectively reflecting on some of her experiences as an Australian Turk.
There was so much I could relate to in Gunaydin’s essays, especially the ones in which she discusses Western Sydney, its cultural makeup (and by extension, its class), its gentrification and its colonial history — after all, I am a part of the wave of urban change that she talks about. And being a Sydneysider, we’ve also shared some similar experiences; I’m no stranger to the 3am institution that is Stanmore McDonalds, I also brunch religiously (despite being unable to justify an $18 avo on toast) and I’ve also had my fair share of uncomfortable racist encounters in this multicultural city.
Gunaydin also talks a lot about the feeling of displacement; where whiteness is really a construct of class and politics, and how you fit on that scale shifts based on where you are in the world. Her dysfunctional family dynamics, seeded by intergenerational trauma that belong specifically to the immigrant group. And what the result of that dysfunction looks like, specifically manifesting into symptoms of PTSD and hypochondria in her case.
Gunaydin’s style is assured and addictive, her witty, self-deprecating humour is a welcome balance to the more sobering ruminations around the effects of diaspora. ROOT & BRANCH has definitely been one of the more insightful — and funny — essay collections I’ve read in a while. Thoroughly relatable and significant, it’s a big recommend from me.
💌 New South Publishing
Find more of my reviews on Instagram: @tackling.my.tbr
Gunaydin’s essays are written with a scholarly ease; clever with a wry, sometimes acerbic, sense of humour. There’s a touch of melodrama in some pieces, a splash of weighty intellectualism in others. Broadly speaking, her essays touch on race relations, colonialism, classism, diaspora and identity, while introspectively reflecting on some of her experiences as an Australian Turk.
There was so much I could relate to in Gunaydin’s essays, especially the ones in which she discusses Western Sydney, its cultural makeup (and by extension, its class), its gentrification and its colonial history — after all, I am a part of the wave of urban change that she talks about. And being a Sydneysider, we’ve also shared some similar experiences; I’m no stranger to the 3am institution that is Stanmore McDonalds, I also brunch religiously (despite being unable to justify an $18 avo on toast) and I’ve also had my fair share of uncomfortable racist encounters in this multicultural city.
Gunaydin also talks a lot about the feeling of displacement; where whiteness is really a construct of class and politics, and how you fit on that scale shifts based on where you are in the world. Her dysfunctional family dynamics, seeded by intergenerational trauma that belong specifically to the immigrant group. And what the result of that dysfunction looks like, specifically manifesting into symptoms of PTSD and hypochondria in her case.
Gunaydin’s style is assured and addictive, her witty, self-deprecating humour is a welcome balance to the more sobering ruminations around the effects of diaspora. ROOT & BRANCH has definitely been one of the more insightful — and funny — essay collections I’ve read in a while. Thoroughly relatable and significant, it’s a big recommend from me.
💌 New South Publishing
Find more of my reviews on Instagram: @tackling.my.tbr
May 18, 2022
Eda’s writing is excruciatingly honest, hilarious and exquisitely earnest. These essays gripped me until the final page. My partner is second gen Turkish much like Eda and I am learning Turkish so I loved the snippets of Turkish that oft remained untranslated. These language moments conjured the feelings of confusion and isolation that I imagine my partner’s non-English speaking parents would encounter daily (and the feeling I have sitting in rooms of Turks who speak their mother tongue).
I read aloud segments of the book to my partner and we both lost it laughing when we read that Eda’s father had repeatedly fed her McDonalds and his response when it caused her weight gain was “bilmiyorum”. So many of these stories were relatable whether it be my experiences as a woman or his as a Turkish Australian.
A beautiful ode to misunderstanding parents, misidentifying place and navigating trauma. Loves it.
I read aloud segments of the book to my partner and we both lost it laughing when we read that Eda’s father had repeatedly fed her McDonalds and his response when it caused her weight gain was “bilmiyorum”. So many of these stories were relatable whether it be my experiences as a woman or his as a Turkish Australian.
A beautiful ode to misunderstanding parents, misidentifying place and navigating trauma. Loves it.
September 26, 2022
Eda Gunaydin is a brilliant essayist. With crude sincerity, she holds a mirror up to the world-at-large, but—perhaps more admirably—to herself, making Root & Branch an interrogation of selfhood and all of its many tendrils. At the heart of it is a dizzying need to be understood, critical still of why and how, and who by. Gunaydin’s want to make sense of her mother is a wound that leaches through the pages, a wound that language itself can’t remedy, but Gunaydin is insistent: she continues to name it, to spell it out, in whatever form it demands to be read in. Gunaydin is, above all else, a masterful critic: the way she examines herself knows no bounds, her reflections sitting on a blurry continuum of confession and unflinching scrutiny. Root & Branch is nothing short of a seminal text.
June 1, 2022
Warning, I never really write reviews so this will be a real hodgepodge of thoughts, and potentially very entitled ones at that. All the other reviews sound very refined to me 😅😅
I really enjoyed this collection of essays, but I fear a large part of this comes from the parasocial. While the author talks about pouring out confession to the void - I’m a member of the void (twitter follower) and there’s always a curiousity to what else is going on in someone’s life. There’s a lot on Twitter but it is still only a window. I often think back to a crisis line training session which said something like strangers aren’t there to satiate your curiosity, don’t ask questions that are for yourself. I got to satiate some curiousity here, without asking any questions.
I was pleasantly challenged (?) by the Turkish laced throughout the text - a reminder that this was not written for me, but i am lucky enough that it is available to me to appreciate anyway.
It is a curious rush that I’ve experienced only once before to read about the places you grew up in, in a book. Especially so to see how another has perceived places in similar or different ways.
The author of course nailed selective schools in NSW.
I’ve said curious too many times.
I currently work in Parramatta, so “Second city” was probably my favourite.
I really enjoyed this collection of essays, but I fear a large part of this comes from the parasocial. While the author talks about pouring out confession to the void - I’m a member of the void (twitter follower) and there’s always a curiousity to what else is going on in someone’s life. There’s a lot on Twitter but it is still only a window. I often think back to a crisis line training session which said something like strangers aren’t there to satiate your curiosity, don’t ask questions that are for yourself. I got to satiate some curiousity here, without asking any questions.
I was pleasantly challenged (?) by the Turkish laced throughout the text - a reminder that this was not written for me, but i am lucky enough that it is available to me to appreciate anyway.
It is a curious rush that I’ve experienced only once before to read about the places you grew up in, in a book. Especially so to see how another has perceived places in similar or different ways.
The author of course nailed selective schools in NSW.
I’ve said curious too many times.
I currently work in Parramatta, so “Second city” was probably my favourite.
April 19, 2023
i might’ve missed the underlying thematic values of her essays, but thjs book has done more for my turkish identity that eda might realise. everything about it, start to finish, so perfectly mirrored my life that for once i felt seen and heard.
in her last chapter, eda describes auburn. beautiful little auburn where i grew up, and she describes it so well that i can even visualise it now despite not seeing it for nearly three years now.
it’s so wonderful to see a australian-turk, or turk-australian, or someone just like me (and alevi too goddamn) talk about the questions that float in my head all day. i love this book so much.
in her last chapter, eda describes auburn. beautiful little auburn where i grew up, and she describes it so well that i can even visualise it now despite not seeing it for nearly three years now.
it’s so wonderful to see a australian-turk, or turk-australian, or someone just like me (and alevi too goddamn) talk about the questions that float in my head all day. i love this book so much.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 19, 2023
In this collection of essays Turkish-Australian writer Eda Gunaydin excavates her life in the search for origins. Gunaydin begins in a kebab store in Blacktown, an origin story of sorts that introduces many of the concerns that will surface throughout the collection: food, body, class, family, patriarchy, Turkishness, Western Sydney, labour, mental health. Her first published short story, Meat, was about "the rage and absurdity of life under capitalism, and our potential to push back against it." In Root And Branch she expands on that rage and absurdism. Read more on my blog.
May 12, 2022
From the very first line, I had a grip on who this wonderful writer was and that I was in safe hands with her accessible style. Root and Branch is a multi-faceted and personal look at 'the materiality of living' through the experience of being a second-generation Turkish woman in Sydney. Eda Gunaydin taps into themes of family, culture, food, diet culture, sexuality, class, ethnicity and gender.
I felt both enlightened and vindicated by just how relatable some of these essays are. Gunaydin's writing is both raw and funny at times, as well as being informative and encouraging of the reader to be a better critical thinker.
I found myself giggling when particular memes or Twitter posts were mentioned and the healthy balance of cynicism and romanticisation of one's own day-to-day felt entirely familiar. I can't wait to give Root and Branch a
second read and possibly a third, because I don't think I can put it down, even now.
June 1, 2023
Beautiful writing. Interesting essays on family, health and culture as a first generation migrant in Western Sydney. Eda pulls together theory and her lives experience in a way that seems almost seamless. So glad that Readings had this as a recommended book in the Culture section as I had never heard of it before.
July 5, 2023
Loved the style, the Sydney interiors and sense of place. There was an assertion in the book (and on the blurb) that Eda likes writing essays because she always thinks she’s right and I agree (I think this is a common feeling, not just of essay writers), but I also think writing essays forces you to challenge and justify your views, which is a good thing
October 4, 2023
Well written, challenging
September 26, 2023
Beautiful, evocative and so sharp. It made me want to give young Eda a big hug. This book articulates so beautifully and with such humour and heart the things many don’t have the words to say about migration, trauma and its ripple effects.
Resonated with me on so many levels!
Resonated with me on so many levels!
September 5, 2024
Original and frank and interesting. Quite uneven with a mix of styles and content some of which felt like it had been wrangled from old university essays on to the page. That’s when my interest flagged. The best bits were the personal and for this reason I think the work of this author will only improve with world experience and some better editing.
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August 7, 2024Sincere, reflective and deeply insightful. Unraveling intergenerational trauma, migration, diaspora and identity, this essay collection is infused with wit, excruciating honesty and Gunaydin’s addictive writing style. Winner of the Non-Fiction Award in Victoria Premier’s Literary Awards 2023.
April 13, 2023
I really loved the book and it really resonated with me a lot especially the need of making Australia a home while being faithful to her culture and background. I don’t think I was able to put that feeling into words until now.
Some of the essays flew so beautifully but some of the chapters felt really hard to read and didn’t feel like added much to the book as a whole :/
Some of the essays flew so beautifully but some of the chapters felt really hard to read and didn’t feel like added much to the book as a whole :/
April 28, 2025
reread, still slaps
June 21, 2022
idk how to review this so i'm gonna make it about myself thanksss. i had this on my desk and my friend who also went to high school with eda was like "it's weird that we know her" meaning and then we get to read this book about her life which we have tangentially been a part of ???
i really enjoyed eda's essay (not in here somewhere on the internet) about how people mine their lives for content and that's what this book was like. how do you even remember this much specific detail about random scenes of your own life ok like i know she said she wrote diaries but still. how much is what really happened and how much is a memory of what happened do you feel!! semi-related eda taught me the word epilepsy because she sat next to me in science class and mentioned it one day lol and i feel like that timeline doesn't match what's in here but also!! personal essays are curated to only show a part of what happened!! everything is fake we're in a simulation i have been losing it this past week and the lofty theoretical concepts that these essays are full of are not making my spiral any better. it's also very weird to be following eda on twitter and having those tweets as a backstory colouring in parts of these essays. is anything real
i wish i knew more turkish so that i could fully comprehend this book. i google translated like every sentence and towards the end i was like oh my god i should've written down the translation so if i ever read this again i don't have to retranslate it. there was like one sentence that i didn't need to translate because i have randomly picked up some turkish words now wild.
no really ok this book made me think so much about my own life and yeah about the gentrification of western sydney what do you mean harris park is the inner west why is newtown "west" when the centre of sydney is in like strathfield or something and then about like immigrant parents and what is home when you've moved away from a place and time so it no longer exists and like wow only now am i learning that a lot of people i went to high school with were Going Through It and no one knew to speak up at the time cos we were only so little i really would love to read more about people's experiences in selective schools i feel like it's a very specific type of messed up but also everyone's having their own individual experiences like i think i thought i was fine back then and just wow i keep learning that everyone's families are very messed up and it keeps happening and is there any way to stop any of it and really truly i think the vast vast majority of people in the world have lived more life than i have
i really enjoyed eda's essay (not in here somewhere on the internet) about how people mine their lives for content and that's what this book was like. how do you even remember this much specific detail about random scenes of your own life ok like i know she said she wrote diaries but still. how much is what really happened and how much is a memory of what happened do you feel!! semi-related eda taught me the word epilepsy because she sat next to me in science class and mentioned it one day lol and i feel like that timeline doesn't match what's in here but also!! personal essays are curated to only show a part of what happened!! everything is fake we're in a simulation i have been losing it this past week and the lofty theoretical concepts that these essays are full of are not making my spiral any better. it's also very weird to be following eda on twitter and having those tweets as a backstory colouring in parts of these essays. is anything real
i wish i knew more turkish so that i could fully comprehend this book. i google translated like every sentence and towards the end i was like oh my god i should've written down the translation so if i ever read this again i don't have to retranslate it. there was like one sentence that i didn't need to translate because i have randomly picked up some turkish words now wild.
no really ok this book made me think so much about my own life and yeah about the gentrification of western sydney what do you mean harris park is the inner west why is newtown "west" when the centre of sydney is in like strathfield or something and then about like immigrant parents and what is home when you've moved away from a place and time so it no longer exists and like wow only now am i learning that a lot of people i went to high school with were Going Through It and no one knew to speak up at the time cos we were only so little i really would love to read more about people's experiences in selective schools i feel like it's a very specific type of messed up but also everyone's having their own individual experiences like i think i thought i was fine back then and just wow i keep learning that everyone's families are very messed up and it keeps happening and is there any way to stop any of it and really truly i think the vast vast majority of people in the world have lived more life than i have
August 27, 2022
I felt totally exhausted after reading this book. By the time I had reached the second half and realised not a crumb of engaging or insightful narrative was going to appear, reading the book felt like a chore with no end in sight.
I initially had high expectations expecting some sort of engaging narrative about
the migrant experience (that I could identify with myself) but it felt like a rather rough, unedited stream of never-ending complaints about the authors life.
It was a never ending pity party scattered with a paucity of semi-profound thoughts that were briefly mentioned but felt shoe-horned into a messy stream of consciousness.
The constant overtones of pessimism and depression were I think indicative of a mindset of typical phd student and just spilled into what seemed like a skewed perception of her past and present, the exact monologue that one would hear from the Sydney Uni's socialist alternatives stacking their minority cards.
When I finally finished this book I felt a wave of relief wash over me and eagerly shelved it to never be read again.
I initially had high expectations expecting some sort of engaging narrative about
the migrant experience (that I could identify with myself) but it felt like a rather rough, unedited stream of never-ending complaints about the authors life.
It was a never ending pity party scattered with a paucity of semi-profound thoughts that were briefly mentioned but felt shoe-horned into a messy stream of consciousness.
The constant overtones of pessimism and depression were I think indicative of a mindset of typical phd student and just spilled into what seemed like a skewed perception of her past and present, the exact monologue that one would hear from the Sydney Uni's socialist alternatives stacking their minority cards.
When I finally finished this book I felt a wave of relief wash over me and eagerly shelved it to never be read again.
May 10, 2023
This collection of essays is often informed by Marxism, which is not quite my cup of tea normally, and yet somehow, Eda is never didactic nor stern, as can be the case with some avid Marxists I've known. In fact, she’s quite brilliant. She has an exciting, original and quirky mind, and an outstanding ability to find new meanings in the most mundane of things, like waiting to order a drink in a bar. Most of all, I love the unexpectedness of her writing, the fresh connections she makes between seemingly unrelated events. Then, her honesty is visceral, especially when she writes about her suicidal drives and with no trace of self-pity, but with fine art and nuance. So much to learn from this book for both writers and readers. This is an achievement of both heart and intellect.
July 12, 2023
Eda Gunaydin's voice is so likable in its honesty and intelligence. This is the type of book you want your friends to read so you can discuss and debate the theories and discourse she weaves through deeply personal stories about family history. It is also the type of book I have earmarked many pages for and has made me want to throw myself into the genre of Essays. I'll be coming back to it to re-read time and time again!
October 24, 2023
A break from my usual content. This one is for school don’t worry my tastes haven’t changed
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