Timeturk / Ahmet Sait Akçay


The common characteristic of Turkish novel published in recent time, parallelizing with postmodern fiction, is telling the past. It comes into being with postmodern trend. The refictionalizing the memory was also attractive for modernist novelist, like Proust. But emphasizing the difference between these inventing process of past. As Linda Hutcheon’s states that the Past is not a means of nostalgia in postmodern fiction, on the contrary is seen as parodical reprise..

Omer Ayhan’s first novel, the Killing City, is binding such ways; he reproduces the mythology of modern city. The narrator tells the changing of architectural structure of Istanbul after 1950. More than a mystery, this novel confronts readers with some interesting questions about trust, suspicion, culture, progress, ethics, and the value or threat of towers spreading more and more. That’s new to Turkish novel, behind the criticizing the new middle class, Ayhan puts argument that although the full dominance of political awareness in Turkish novel, narrating the neglecting issues so far .

The Killing City, if stated a damned story, reveals the dystopia of Past and historical myths. Says the decadence of Istanbul in the scope of developmental narration. Story in novel is concerning with cultural roots depending on The Old Testament. The novelist takes buildings as a living organism. Scrutinizing the magazines to have the basic structure project, the narrator interprets through close readings on History of Architecture in Turkey. And also the buildings have metaphorical meanings that the damned come to being with the architectural novelty binding couldn’t progress a bit.

 
* Omer Ayhan is a novelist and a musician born in Istanbul, he took his bacholar degree from Music at Yıldız Technical University. Now he lives in Mexico City.