Description
Since the middle of the twentieth century, Turkish playwriting has been notable for its verve and versatility. This two-volume anthology is the first major collection of plays in English of modern Turkish drama, a selection dealing with ancient Anatolian mythology, Ottoman history, contemporary social issues and family dramas, ribald comedy from Turkey’s cities and rural areas. It also includes several plays set outside Turkey.
The two volumes together will feature seventeen plays by major playwrights published or produced from the late 1940s to the present day, with volume 1,“Ibrahim the Mad” and Other Plays, encompassing plays from the 1940s through the 1960s, and volume 2, “I, Anatolia” and Other Plays, including plays from the 1970s through the 1990s. They grant to English readers the pleasure of riveting drama in translations that are colloquial as well as faithful. For producers, directors, and actors they provide a wealth of fresh, new material, with characters ranging from Ottoman sultans to a Soviet cosmonaut, from the Byzantine Empress Theodora to a fisherman’s wife, from residents of an Istanbul neighborhood to King Midas, from Montezuma to a Turkish cabinet minister.
Table of Contents
Preface
Guide to Turkish Spelling, Pronunciation, and Monetary Terms
Introduction: An Overview of Turkish Drama (Until 1970), Talat S. Halman
The Neighborhood, Ahmet Kutsi Tecer
A Ball for the Imaginative, Tunç Yalman
Man of the Hour, Haldun Taner
In Ambush, Cahi, T. Atay
Sea Rose, Necati Cumali
A Shanty in Istanbul, Başar Sabuncu
The Mikado Game, Melih Cevdet Anday
İbrahim the Mad, A. Turan Oflazoğlu
Çiçu, Azi Z. Nesin
Biographical Notes
About the Author
Talat S. Halman is professor and chairman of the Department of Turkish Literature at Bilkent University in Ankara. Formerly he was on the faculties of Columbia University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and New York University. He has written or edited more than seventy-five books, including Contemporary Turkish Literature, Modern Turkish Drama, and Süleyman the Magnificent Poet. He is also editor of the Journal of Turkish Literature (JTL).
Jayne L. Warner is director of research at the Institute for Aegean Prehistory in Greenwich, Connecticut.
June 2008