Shadowless Hasan Ali Toptas

Turkish writer

Hasan Ali Toptaş (born 15 October ) is a prominent Turkishnovelist and short story writer. His first short story book Bir Gülüşün Kimliği (The Identity of A Laugh) was published in ^[1] An important Turkish scholar, Yıldız Ecevit nicknames him "a postmodernmodernist" and calls him "a Kafka in Turkish literature", in her work Türk Romanında Postmodernist Açılımlar (The Postmodernist Expansion in Turkish Literature).^[2]

Allegations of sexual misconduct[edit]

On 8 December , Toptaş was accused of sexual misconduct by a number of users on Twitter. On TRT 2's program Karalama Defteri, which was presented by Doğan Hızlan, Toptaş's opinion of translators were shared and criticized by some scholars. In episode 37 of the program which was broadcast in November , Toptaş faced criticism after making a connection between the age of translators and their choice of words.^[3] A part of this episode was later shared on Twitter in , to which a woman replied, "How many people are eagerly waiting for this man to be exposed? I and many of my friends have unpleasant memories of him from our university years. If I had the current consciousness and courage I would definitely speak up. The classic middle-aged man of letters. Really a disappointment." After this comment nearly 20 women shared their experiences of harassment by Toptaş.^[4]

Writer Pelin Buzluk was among those who stated that they experienced harassment at the hands of Toptaş and described the incident as 'sexual assault'. Inspired by the Me Too movement, many women later expressed solidarity with the victims. Toptaş accepted the accusations and wrote, "Until a person understands what [the definition of] a male offender is, he can make mistakes without knowing, realizing or thinking about what great wounds he could inflict on the other side. Today we learn from women what being a doer is. I sincerely apologize to all the people I hurt, upset and harmed with my unwitting behavior."^[5][6] After the events, the website seafoodplus.info and many users made a call to Everest Publications, the publishers of Toptaş's works, to end their collaboration with him.^[7] Saadet Özen, the editor-in-chief of Everest, responded to the call on Twitter and said, "the statement of a woman is essential for the victim's voice to be heard, the harassment and pressure to be revealed, to be discussed and questioned". She added that they would act accordingly and terminate their works with Toptaş.^[8][9] The publication house further stated "We are against all kinds of harassment and will continue to be."^[10] The Turkish Writers' Union also called on literati to take a collective attitude against all kinds of harassment using social and literary status.^[11] His Mersin City Literature Award was revoked after the harassment cases came forward, with the city council deeming it necessary "due to our humanitarian, moral, conscientious, and literary responsibility."^[12] Director Ali Aydın and producer Müge Büyüktalaş announced that the project for adapting Toptaş's novel Kuşlar Yasına Gider into a movie had been cancelled. The project had been in development since ^[13]

Works[edit]

Works in English[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Existentialism has influenced a lot of literary works throughout history. Existentialism can be studied in literary works by means of foregrounding the existential themes and techniques. Some of these themes are being, change, freedom, selfcognizance, isolation, responsibility, free-will, and alienation. Traversing the boundary between philosophy and literature, this essay aims to analyse the existential themes of Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit or Huis Clos () and Hasan Ali Toptaş’s Shadowless1 or Gölgesizler () with an intertextual and comparative approach. This essay considers Sartre’s No Exit and Toptaş’s Shadowless as postmodern texts. Before exploring the existentialist themes and techniques in No Exit and Shadowless, this study aims to discuss the tradition of existentialism in literature. After presenting an introductory review on such existentialist concepts in literature as existence, essence, freedom, angst, and absurd, some recurrent themes in Sartre’s and Toptaş’s works will be highlighted and analysed. After a brief exploration of the influence of existentialism on Turkish literature, the essay will focus on the textual analysis. No Exit will be analysed from the perspective provided by such concepts as “being-for-itself”, “being-for-other”, “isolation and claustrophobic existence”; as for Shadowless, “being and nothingness” and “anxiety of uncertainty, emptiness and meaninglessness” will serve as the existential themes reflected in the novel. Within the framework of existentialism, an intertextual approach to and a comparative analysis of Shadowless from Turkish Literature along with No Exit from French Literature is an attempt of situating Modern Turkish Literature within the broader regional and global context. As a last point, this paper also aims to contribute both to critical studies on Sartre’s work and scholarship on the woks of Hasan Ali Toptaş work whose works of fiction have rarely been discussed from a comparative or world literature studies perspective.

A knotty, postmodern tale. The quicksilver narrative slips between dream, memory and reality A beguiling enigma' Financial Times In an Anatolian village forgotten both by God and the government, the muhtar has been elected leader for the sixteenth successive year. When he staggers to bed that night, drunk on raki and his own well-deserved success, the village is prosperous. But when he is woken by his wife the next evening he discovers that Nuri, the barber, has disappeared without a trace in the dead of night, and the community begins to fracture. In a nameless town far, far away, Nuri walks into a barbershop as if from a dream, not knowing how he has arrived. Try as he might, he cannot grasp the strands of his memory. The facts of his past life shift and evade him, and as other customers come and go, they too struggle to recall how they got there Blurring the lines of reality to terrific effect, Shadowless is both a compelling mystery and an enduring evocation of displacement from one of the finest, most exciting voices in Turkish literature today.