The year 1960 marks a turning point in modern Turkish history. The military coup d’état that took place in that year would lead to two significant transformations in Turkish politics: 1) the traditionalization (or institutionalization) of the military’s role in politics and 2) the emergence of social movement-based political movements and parties. The work outlined below focuses primarily upon this second characteristic of post-1960 Turkish politics. In exploring the latter, the work analyzes four main political movements or parties, each of which may be considered a social movement in its own right: The leftist movement, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Political Islam, and the Kurdish national movement.  

Politics of Social Movements in Turkey: From the 1960s to the 2000s

About the Author:   Ergun Aydınoğlu (PhD, Strasbourg University) is a member of the faculty of the Yıldız Teknik University Department of Political Science and International Relations. He is the author of several books on Turkish politics, most recently the upcoming Türkiye Solu (The Left in Turkey), to be published by Versus Kitap in Spring, 2007.   Click here for more information about this title.

Born 15 May 1962 in Istanbul and a graduate of the Istanbul University Sociology Department (1984), Bilal became a published author in 1986 when his short stories appeared in Felek Publications’ “Living Stories” series. After working as an editor and proofreader for several Turkish magazines, Bilal headed for Germany, where he studied Germanics and Political Science at Stuttgart University in 1989-1991. He then worked as a writer and creative director for several advertising agencies in 1992-2001, and he has been a freelance writer since 2001.

Author of the novels Üçüncü Tekil Şahıs (Third Person Singular) and Adresinde Bulunamadı (Sender), Bilal writes about cinema, music, and literature for various print and online periodicals, and he is part of the scenario writing team for such hit TV shows as Aliye, Rüya Gibi, and Binbir Gece

ayşe düzkan on Third Person Singular (from Radikal newspaper)…

once you pick up ‘third person singular,’ it’s impossible to put down—you devour it in one sitting. … this is a book not to be missed by anyone: that is to say, it is a book for gay men, for people who have gay friends, for people who know gay men, who don’t know any gay men, and most of all, for people who think gay men are bogeymen.

Sırma Köksal on Third Person Singular (from Picus magazine)…

Third Person Singular is a novel about love. Some might prefer to call it first and foremost a gay novel, but because I don't believe that love—or to be more precise, the victim-executioner relation in love—is monopolized by any particular gender coding, I would describe it, first and foremost, as a novel on love. … Third Person Singular is the best first novel to appear in Turkish literature in a very long time.

About Sender:

An envelope is returned to the sender four years, seven months and three days after being sent.

The novel has two narrators. One of them is an envelope, which tells us about its (sometimes perilous, always intriguing) journey via the planes and postal sacks of the world as it seeks to arrive at an elusive destination. Parallel to the envelope’s account is that of a second protagonist who tells us the story of his own journey, from the city of his birth in Denizli to university in Istanbul, and finally to Germany.

Kicked out by his family because he is gay, the narrator tries to move on, but the gay nightlife of Istanbul only wreaks more havoc upon his already fractured life. Under the guidance of an old friend, he decides to go to Stuttgart and start his life anew. Challenges and hardships await him in Germany, but so does a new love…

Represented by Anatolialit Agency in conjunction with İletişim Yayınları

A masterful critic of social injustice, gender inequality, and militarism, Sevgi Soysal’s writings are essential to understanding Turkey since the 1960’s. The fact that Soysal’s complete works continue to attract a devoted readership is proof of the power of her writing, as well as her lasting influence upon both the Turkish public and the intelligentsia.

Turkish journalist Yıldırım Türker says that for him, Sevgi Soysal is “a tulle of shrewd attitude, rebellious joy, and intelligence glistening with the sheen of compassion, through which I viewed the world in my early youth.”

About Tante Rosa:

Published by: İletişim Yayınları

ISBN: 975050092X. Originally published in 1968.

… Sevgi Soysal never wearied of pursuing her own unique literary quest. She strove to develop a method that she called “new realism,” in order to reveal reality in its multiple facets. Tante Rosa is the product of that quest. Sevgi Soysal treats the misfit Rosa’s individual destiny with such a delicate literary touch that the social reasons behind what makes up the individual are always right there in from of us. Despite the pain so acutely described in Tante Rosa, it ultimately remains an ebullient novel, enriched by humorous elements—a modern fairytale of odd incidents, oddly true to life.