Elif Batuman

"An addictive, sprawling epic; I wolfed it down." --Miranda July, author of The First Bad Man and It Chooses You "Easily the funniest book I've read this year." --GQ A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself. The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary. Selin may have barely spoken to Ivan, but with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take on new and increasingly mysterious meanings. At the end of the school year, Ivan goes to Budapest for the summer, and Selin heads to the Hungarian countryside, to teach English in a program run by one of Ivan's friends. On the way, she spends two weeks visiting Paris with Svetlana. Selin's summer in Europe does not resonate with anything she has previously heard about the typical experiences of American college students, or indeed of any other kinds of people. For Selin, this is a journey further inside herself: a coming to grips with the ineffable and exhilarating confusion of first love, and with the growing consciousness that she is doomed to become a writer. With superlative emotional and intellectual sensitivity, mordant wit, and pitch-perfect style, Batuman dramatizes the uncertainty of life on the cusp of adulthood. Her prose is a rare and inimitable combination of tenderness and wisdom; its logic as natural and inscrutable as that of memory itself. The Idiot is a heroic yet self-effacing reckoning with the terror and joy of becoming a person in a world that is as intoxicating as it is disquieting. Batuman's fiction is unguarded against both life's affronts and its beauty--and has at its command the complete range of thinking and feeling which they entail.

The Idiot

From the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Idiot, the continuation of beloved protagonist Selin’s quest for self-knowledge, as she travels abroad and tests the limits of her newfound adulthood Selin is the luckiest person in her family: the only one who was born in America and got to go to Harvard. Now it’s sophomore year, 1996, and Selin knows she has to make it count. The first order of business: to figure out the meaning of everything that happened over the summer. Why did Selin’s elusive crush, Ivan, find her that job in the Hungarian countryside? What was up with all those other people in the Hungarian countryside? Why is Ivan’s weird ex-girlfriend now trying to get in touch with Selin? On the plus side, it feels like the plot of an exciting novel. On the other hand, why do so many novels have crazy abandoned women in them? How does one live a life as interesting as a novel—a life worthy of becoming a novel—without becoming a crazy abandoned woman oneself? Guided by her literature syllabus and by her more worldly and confident peers, Selin reaches certain conclusions about the universal importance of parties, alcohol, and sex, and resolves to execute them in practice—no matter what the cost. Next on the list: international travel. Unfolding with the propulsive logic and intensity of youth, Either/Or is a landmark novel by one of our most brilliant writers. Hilarious, revelatory, and unforgettable, its gripping narrative will confront you with searching questions that persist long after the last page.

Either/Or

An award-winning Stanford University literary professor documents the stories of individuals who have dedicated their lives in occasionally absurd ways to pay tribute to Russian classics, describing their investigations of historical events, emulations of author habits and more. Original.

Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them

The Possessed

L'idiota

El debut novelístico nominado al Pulitzer sobre el gran desafío que supone llegar a la edad adulta. Esta historia empieza en el año 1995, cuando el e-mail era algo nuevo y emocionante. La protagonista es Selin, hija de inmigrantes turcos apasionada por la literatura que acaba de llegar a Harvard decidida a convertirse en escritora. Acostumbrada a vivir a través de los libros, llega a la universidad sin manual de instrucciones: ¿cómo se hacen amigos? ¿Cómo se enamora uno? ¿Importan más las cosas cuando se viven que cuando se leen? Selin ve su vida como una narración más pero, ¿qué pasa cuando intentamos añadir otras personas a nuestra historia? Así empieza su relación con Ivan, un estudiante húngaro de matemáticas algo mayor que ella con quien comenzará a escribirse. Mediante el correo electrónico, crearán un mundo paralelo habitable (o una barrera de ficción tras la que esconderse) que rápidamente eclipsará todas sus otras relaciones. Durante los doce meses que cubre esta novela de iniciación, la heroína de Batuman hace uso de un ingenio y una mordacidad entrañables para descubrirse y, sobre todo, inventarse ante el desafío que supone llegar a la edad adulta. Este debut nominado al Pulitzer es una reflexión perdurable sobre la relación entre el arte y la vida; las palabras y el mundo real; las historias que nos contamos y las narrativas en las que queremos encajar. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION A New York Times Book Review Notable Book Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Longlisted for the Women''s Prize for Fiction "An addictive, sprawling epic; I wolfed it down." --Miranda July, author of The First Bad Man and It Chooses You "Easily the funniest book I''ve read this year." --GQ A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself. The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary. Selin may have barely spoken to Ivan, but with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take on new and increasingly mysterious meanings. At the end of the school year, Ivan goes to Budapest for the summer, and Selin heads to the Hungarian countryside, to teach English in a program run by one of Ivan''s friends. On the way, she spends two weeks visiting Paris with Svetlana. Selin''s summer in Europe does not resonate with anything she has previously heard about the typical experiences of American college students, or indeed of any other kinds of people. For Selin, this is a journey further inside herself: a coming to grips with the ineffable and exhilarating confusion of first love, and with the growing consciousness that she is doomed to become a writer. With superlative emotional and intellectual sensitivity, mordant wit, and pitch-perfect style, Batuman dramatizes the uncertainty of life on the cusp of adulthood. Her prose is a rare and inimitable combination of tenderness and wisdom; its logic as natural and inscrutable as that of memory itself. The Idiot is a heroic yet self-effacing reckoning with the terror and joy of becoming a person in a world that is as intoxicating as it is disquieting. Batuman''s fiction is unguarded against both life''s affronts and its beauty--and has at its command the complete range of thinking and feeling which they entail. Named one the best books of the year by Refinery29 * Mashable One * Elle Magazine * The New York Times * Bookpage * Vogue * NPR * Buzzfeed *The Millions

La Idiota / the Idiot

Budala

Neste romance finalista do prêmio Pulitzer, acompanhamos o amadurecimento de uma jovem universitária nos anos 1990 que se descobre como escritora enquanto vive as agruras e as delícias do primeiro amor. Selin, filha de imigrantes turcos, começará seu primeiro semestre em Harvard. O ano é 1995 e a internet, uma novidade. Ela se inscreve em matérias de que nunca ouviu falar, faz amizade com a carismática e cosmopolita colega sérvia, Svetlana, e começa a se corresponder por e-mail com Ivan, um estudante de matemática húngaro, mais velho. Selin falou pouco com Ivan, mas a cada e-mail que trocam, o ato de escrever parece assumir significados novos e cada vez mais misteriosos. No final do ano letivo, Selin vai passar um tempo na Europa, mas o verão lá não lembra em nada o que ela já ouviu falar sobre as experiências típicas de estudantes universitários americanos. Trata-se de uma jornada mais profunda para dentro de si mesma: enfrentar a inefável e estimulante confusão do primeiro amor, acompanhada da crescente consciência de que está predestinada a se tornar uma escritora. Com impressionante sensibilidade emocional e intelectual, humor mordaz e um estilo sem reparos, Elif Batuman dramatiza as incertezas da vida prestes a entrar na idade adulta. "Batuman certamente tem um dos melhores sensos de humor das letras americanas." — Sheila Heti, autora de Maternidade "A idiota é uma imersão comicamente mundana em um universo que nunca antes havia recebido o tratamento de um romance do século XIX. Um épico viciante e contagiante." — Miranda July, autora de O escolhido foi você "Sem dúvida o livro mais engaçado que li esse ano." — GQ

A idiota

'I loved it and could have read a thousand more pages of it' Emma Cline, author of The Girls **SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018** Selin, a tall, highly strung Turkish-American from New Jersey turns up at Harvard with no idea what to expect. What she doesn't expect is: - How much time she will spend thinking about language and its limitations - An opinionated cosmopolitan Serb named Svetlana, who will become her confidante - A mathematician from Hungary called Ivan, whom she will obsess over when she is supposed to be studying - Feeling dangerously overwhelmed by the challenges and possibilities of adulthood But most of all, Selin does not expect to embark on a study of precisely how baffling love can be when you are trying to forge a self... _______________- PRAISE FOR THE IDIOT: 'A moving, continent-hopping coming-of-age story' Observer 'Elif Batuman surely has one of the best senses of humour...refreshing and unique' Sheila Heti 'Full of zingy one-liners' Financial Times 'Hilarious, brilliant observations about writing, life and crushes' Curtis Sittenfeld 'Delightful and slyly funny' Red

I posseduti. Storie di grandi romanzieri russi e dei loro lettori

De idioot

O lo uno o lo Otro / Either

Idiot

Daniel Smith

Rachel Sherman

Keith Gessen

Alexander Kluge

Pankaj Mishra

Mark Greif

Peter Gizzi

Benjamin Kunkel

Marco Roth

Peter Frankel

Happiness

n+1, Number 2

Elif Batuman ha scritto uno dei romanzi di formazione piú originali degli ultimi anni, un'educazione sentimentale e letteraria traboccante di intelligenza, umorismo e tenerezza. «Un romanzo tanto divertente quanto intellettualmente sottile, sorprendente, illuminante». «The New York Review of Books»

Salih Zeki Meriç

Jack Smith

Mustafa Çiftci

Mustafa Özel

Vural Kaya

Galip Çağ

Sadullah Yıldız

Ercan Yılmaz

Ayşe Saliha Emon

Büşra Tümkaya

Ender Ekim

Rabia Elif Ateş

Rumeysa Betül Tuncay

Sümeyye Çiftçi

Vildan Kınalı

Yağız Gönüler

Mehmet Kahraman

Fatma Bayram

Ayşegül Genç

Can Ahmet Çelik

Mustafa Diker

Yasemin Ünal

Sevde Yaşar Çimen

Bilge Ece Toktaş

Feride Özge Yılmaz

Mustafa Uçurum

Dursun Çiçek

Kübra Ramazan Kaya

M. Akif Öztürk

Rabia Bulut

Burcu Bayer

Enes Celep

Handan Acar Yıldız

Hatice Mert Yumak

İsa Karaaslan

Mustafa Mete

Necmeddin Okyay

Sıddık Yurtsever

44. sayımızla huzurlarınızdayız. Bu sayının dosya konusu, edebiyatta sıklıkla konuşulan ama yeterince ciddiyetle ele alınmayan bir alana, çocuk edebiyatına odaklanıyor. “Herkes çocuk kitabı yazabilir mi?” sorusu yalnızca provokatif bir başlık değil, bu alandaki üretimlerin niteliğine ve ciddiyetine dönük bir çağrıdır aynı zamanda. Çocuklara yazmak, çoğu zaman en kolay yazı türü olarak görülüyor. Oysa biz bu kanaate güçlü bir şekilde itiraz ediyoruz. Çocuklar için yazmak, sade cümleler kurmak değil; zihin ve hayal dünyasını besleyen, aynı zamanda ahlaki ve estetik bir sorumluluğu taşıyan metinler kurmaktır. Kübra Ramazan Kaya ve Yasemin Ünal’ın birlikte hazırladığı dosya, hem bu sorunun arka planını açıyor hem de alandaki yazar, editör ve akademisyenlerin katkısıyla kapsamlı bir tartışma zemini sunuyor. Dosyada, yazarlığın çocuklara yönelirken nasıl dönüşmesi gerektiğine, edebi kalite ile pedagojik hassasiyetin nasıl bir arada tutulabileceğine, çizgiden dile, temadan üsluba kadar pek çok meseleye değiniliyor. Mustafa Çiftci’nin yalın ama derinlikli anlatımı, Yağız Gönüler’in anlam ve aidiyet üzerine düşündüren yazısı, Hatice Mert Yumak’ın kutsal mekanlara ilişkin bakışı, Burcu Bayer’in tekke kültürü ve ritüellerini edebi bir dille ele alışı, dergimizi zenginleştiren metinlerden. Mustafa Diker’in İmam Gazali üzerine yazısı, dini mirasın hikmetli bir bakışla nasıl aktarılabileceğini gösterirken, Galip Çağ’ın aile temelli tarih anlatısı prosopografi yaklaşımıyla dikkat çekiyor. Salih Zeki Meriç’in kavram yazısı, düşünce dünyamızın yapıtaşlarına yeniden bakma imkanı sunuyor. Söyleşi sayfalarında Enes Celep ile gençlik, kitaplar ve samimiyet üzerine konuştuk; Handan Acar Yıldız ile kadim ilmin bugünkü karşılıklarını, Fatma Bayram ile ilim ve hassasiyetin beraberliğini ele aldık. Rabia Bulut’un Metin Erksan sinemasına dair yazısı, görsel anlatının edebi karşılıklarını düşünmemiz için ilham verici. Çeviri sayfamızda rastlayacağınız, Elif Batuman’ın Sayaka Murata üzerine kaleme aldığı çözümleme, çağdaş Japon edebiyatını kültürel normlar ve bireysel yabancılaşma ekseninde yeniden okumamıza imkan tanıyor. İsa Karaaslan’ın modern insanın çıkmazlarına dair yazısı ise felsefi ve varoluşsal bir çağrıyı içinde barındırıyor. Dursun Çiçek, Rumeysa Betül Tuncay, Vildan Kınalı ve Mustafa Uçurum gibi isimler de metinleriyle bu sayının düşünsel çeşitliliğine katkı sunuyor. “A’dan Z’ye Kitaplarım” köşesinde Mustafa Özel’i konuk ettik; kitaplarla kurduğu kalıcı ve derin ilişkiyi okurla paylaştı. “İyi Okur Ne Dinlesin?” bölümü ise bu sayıda da meraklısına podcast önerileri sunmaya devam ediyor. Bu sayıda da kitapların büyülü dünyasının, yalnızca estetik bir alan değil; kültürel sürekliliğin, şahsi gelişimin ve toplumsal sorumluluğun da bir mecrası olduğunu tekrar hatırlatıyoruz. Kitapların içinden geçerek kendimize, başkasına ve birlikte yaşadığımız dünyaya bir adım daha yaklaşmak niyetiyle. Eleştiri ve önerilerinizi her zaman bekliyoruz: okur@okurdergisi.com Bir sonraki sayıda yeniden görüşmek üzere.

Okur Dergisi Sayı: 44

Double-entry Bookkeeping in the Novel

The Windmill and the Giant

An instant New York Times bestseller! A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 “Batuman has a gift for making the universe seem, somehow, like the benevolent and witty literary seminar you wish it were . . .This novel wins you over in a million micro-observations.” —The New York Times “Batuman is a genius, rendering human folly at its most colorful and borderline surreal.” —Vogue From the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Idiot, the continuation of beloved protagonist Selin’s quest for self-knowledge, as she travels abroad and tests the limits of her newfound adulthood Selin is the luckiest person in her family: the only one who was born in America and got to go to Harvard. Now it’s sophomore year, 1996, and Selin knows she has to make it count. The first order of business: to figure out the meaning of everything that happened over the summer. Why did Selin’s elusive crush, Ivan, find her that job in the Hungarian countryside? What was up with all those other people in the Hungarian countryside? Why is Ivan’s weird ex-girlfriend now trying to get in touch with Selin? On the plus side, it feels like the plot of an exciting novel. On the other hand, why do so many novels have crazy abandoned women in them? How does one live a life as interesting as a novel—a life worthy of becoming a novel—without becoming a crazy abandoned woman oneself? Guided by her literature syllabus and by her more worldly and confident peers, Selin reaches certain conclusions about the universal importance of parties, alcohol, and sex, and resolves to execute them in practice—no matter what the cost. Next on the list: international travel. Unfolding with the propulsive logic and intensity of youth, Either/Or is a landmark novel by one of our most brilliant writers. Hilarious, revelatory, and unforgettable, its gripping narrative will confront you with searching questions that persist long after the last page.

One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year THE TRUE BUT UNLIKELY STORIES OF LIVES DEVOTED—ABSURDLY! MELANCHOLICALLY! BEAUTIFULLY!—TO THE RUSSIAN CLASSICS No one who read Elif Batuman's first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. "Babel in California" told the true story of various human destinies intersecting at Stanford University during a conference about the enigmatic writer Isaac Babel. Over the course of several pages, Batuman managed to misplace Babel's last living relatives at the San Francisco airport, uncover Babel's secret influence on the making of King Kong, and introduce her readers to a new voice that was unpredictable, comic, humane, ironic, charming, poignant, and completely, unpretentiously full of love for literature. Batuman's subsequent pieces—for The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and the London Review of Books— have made her one of the most sought-after and admired writers of her generation, and its best traveling companion. In The Possessed we watch her investigate a possible murder at Tolstoy's ancestral estate. We go with her to Stanford, Switzerland, and St. Petersburg; retrace Pushkin's wanderings in the Caucasus; learn why Old Uzbek has one hundred different words for crying; and see an eighteenth-century ice palace reconstructed on the Neva. Love and the novel, the individual in history, the existential plight of the graduate student: all find their place in The Possessed. Literally and metaphorically following the footsteps of her favorite authors, Batuman searches for the answers to the big questions in the details of lived experience, combining fresh readings of the great Russians, from Pushkin to Platonov, with the sad and funny stories of the lives they continue to influence—including her own.

Románová prvotina americké novinářky je příběhem mladé dívky tureckého původu, ktera začíná studovat na prestižní americké Harvardově univerzitě. Idiot je románem o strastech a slastech dospívání a formování osobnosti ve světě, který je opojný i zneklidňující zároveň, o dobrodružném odhalování záludností, které jsou zakódované v podstatě lásky i jazyka. Tápání člověka na prahu dospělosti v něm Elif Batumanová vykresluje pečlivě cizelovaným stylem, s velkou dávkou citlivosti, ale také ironického humoru. Českému čtenáři pak nabízí i zábavný a trochu nezvyklý pohled na čerstvě posttotalitní střední Evropu: hrdinčina cesta do Maďarska vypovídá jak o představách, které si Západ o našem regionu hýčkal, tak o nás samotných. Nakladatelská anotace. Kráceno.

Elif Batuman

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