Many authors have looked at the first steps in the life of an inexperienced young man who discovers love in the company of an older woman – we think of Orhan Pamuk with The red-haired woman or to Mario Vargas Llosa with Aunt Julia and the scribbler.
The Turkish Ahmet Altan, who stood out in 2019 with his prison texts (I will never see the world again, Actes Sud), takes the opportunity, however, to explore other questions which give an interesting depth to this novel of great sensitivity, also written behind bars, and which won the Femina prize for foreign novel last October.
“We don’t learn much about existence, in happy families, I know it now, it’s misfortune that teaches us life,” says Fazil, the young narrator. Around the same time he meets the voluptuous Madame Hayat, Fazil meets Sila, a young woman his age who, like him, studies literature. He also shares with her this status of “new poor” which is now the fate of many of their compatriots having their property confiscated by the authorities, when they are not quite simply arrested. In Madame Hayat’s arms, he forgets everything, even his lessons, while with Sila, he sees a different future.
As the country sinks into darkness and fear emerges, solidarity competes with mistrust and fear of being denounced, he will have to make the most important decision of his life, now unable to close his eyes. on everything he has learned in the space of a year: to leave or to stay.
Madame Hayat
Ahmet Altan
South Acts
272 pages