The Time Regulation Institute
By (Author) Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar
Penguin Books Ltd
Penguin Classics
28th May 2014
3rd April 2014
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Fiction in translation
894.3533
Paperback
432
Width 130mm, Height 198mm, Spine 26mm
318g
A forgotten masterpiece of Turkish literature, championed by Orhan Pamuk and translated into English for the first time 'Just as she was being lowered into the earth - following the late afternoon call to prayer - my aunt sprang briskly back to life' In this fictional memoir of Hayri Irdal - troublesome boy, workshy man and feckless husband - life is examined in all its double-crossing, chaotic, disastrous glory. From his youth, dismantling timepieces while his family fell apart, to his later years at the scandal-hit Time Regulation Institute, Hayri's absurdist misadventures play out as a brilliant allegory of the collision between East and West, tradition and modernity.
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar is undoubtedly the most remarkable author in modern Turkish literature. With The Time Regulation Institute, this great writer has created an allegorical masterpiece, which makes Turkey's attempts to westernize and its delayed modernity understandable in all its human ramifications -- Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
Chosen by Boyd Tonkin * Independent Best Fiction in Translation *
Ahmed Hamdi Tanpinar was a beloved Turkish novelist and essayist and a member of Turkish parliament. Born in Istanbul in 1901, Tanpinar came to be educated in several Turkish cities and and travelled widely throughout Europe. The Time Regulation Institute is his most celebrated novel, followed by A Mind at Peace. He thrived at writing about cultural duality and and the divided self. MAUREEN FREELY (translator) is the principal translator of Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist. She lives in England. ALEXANDER DAWE (translator) is an American translator of French and Turkish. He lives in Istanbul. PANKAJ MISHRA (introducer) is an award-winning novelist and essayist whose writing appears frequently in the New York Review of Books, The Guardian, and the London Review of Books. He lives in London and India.