The BURIED Book Club discussion

Aziz Nesin was a Turkish writer of leftist leanings and atheist persuasion, both of which got him into the hot çay under a rightist Nationalist regime and a predominantly Muslim societay. Like a lot of scribblers under such circumstances his short stories are often veiled dissent and subversion. His range from a-little-too-pat allegory to invention on the Borgesian level. I discovered him cuz I had a Turkish bf once who had a whole bunch of books and I was like "Mmm, a reader!" then they all turned out to be just inherited from his dad who was the actual reader but I kept seein'im cuz he was superhot but ANYHOOO one of the authors on his shelf was this guy. So how does a dude with 5,092 ratings and 201 reviews qualify as "buried"? Although he's written over 200 books, Goodreads.com, the site you are currently looking at, has only eight English translations in the database, and they have no English reviews, except the first memoir and the Hoja tales, which have one very brief one each.

Short stories:


Laugh or Lament: Selected Short Stories

Dog Tails: And Other Stories


and the gr-coverless
Turkish Stories from Four Decades
(my review is here.)

And the chirrun's book
The Dance of the Eagle and the Fish


A comedy about a public hanging:
Hayri The Barber: Surnâmé


A collection of retellings of the folktales about the wise-man/fool Nasreddin Hoja:
The Tales of Nasrettin Hoca


Out of the Way! Socialism's Coming!/Sosyalizm Geliyor Savulun


and the memoirs
Istanbul Boy: Boyle Gelmis Boyle Gitmez (That's How It Was But Not How It's Going to Be) the Autobiography of Aziz Nesin

Memoirs Of An Exile


There are other translations out there (according to Worldcat) so I will try to add them to his listings on this site.

I plan to fix this egregious oversight by writing reviews of the short story collections soon, especially if I can locate the journal where I used to scribble drunken impressions of writers I'd discovered. I have never met an American who's ever heard of him, but he is an institution in Turkey, literally. As per his will the Nesim Foundation takes in orphans and provides education and every other necessity until adulthood. It is the recipient of all of the proceeds from his copyrights and is the location of his unmarked grave. It is unknown by this author whether the kids think that is creepy or not.

Waking up this thread because Gregsamsa threatened me. Also, he didn't tell me about this guy (remind me of this guy) back when I was reading every scratch I could find from Turkei worth some salt.

Oh thank you sooo much Natie-cakes! I'm enduring unspeakable fam drama etc so not NEARLY as attentive to these things as I used to be but Nesin is not at fault; he should not suffer from my being related to people who both have children and like meth. NO!
hE Would object strongly. He got hisself buried at his patron orphanage to which his fiction profits GO people. How cool is that? Plus a li'l SPOOKY. I'll be back doin' this more when I can.

ok like some of his stories are a lil tut-tut ON THE NOSE as far as fables go but some of his stuff is full blown delicious and if you wanna know what I mean by that then look at what I like. I'm not directing you to SHIT here, I mean... This guy is very good and very very overlooked (and even saying "overlooked" is sorta ethno- or colonio- whatever cuz he's got mad amounts of readers on GR but not just in OUR POWER LANGUAGE.

end parenthesis

I'll review what/when I can. I am working on a translation, too, with a dude whose English is almost as terrible as my Turkish. But we are passionate about Aziz and we will force you to be so soon too.

Thank you Nathan