Armenians in Modern Turkish Literature
The Case of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar
Abstract
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar (1901-1962) is one of the greatest Turkish writers of the twentieth century – a central influence upon Orhan Pamuk and a major figure in Turkish letters, most famous for his classic novel A Mind At Peace and his ground-breaking satire of the Kemalist modernizing project, The Time Regulation Institute. A conservative Turkish nationalist writer who had many Armenian friends and connections to the Armenian world, the talks examines some of the ambiguities and ambivalences within Tanpinar’s own work – and how his fiction dealt with, or ignored, the Ottoman violence inflicted upon Armenians during this period.
About the speaker
Ian Almond is Professor of World Literature at Georgetown University. He is the author of six books, most recently Two Faiths, One Banner (Harvard University Press, 2009) and The Thought of Nirad C. Chaudhuri (Cambridge University Press, 2015), and over fifty articles in a variety of journals. He specializes in comparative world literature, with a tri-continental emphasis on Mexico, Bengal and Turkey. His work has been translated into fifteen languages. The Arabic translation of his book Sufism and Deconstruction was shortlisted (one of 7) for the largest literary prize in existence, the Sheikh Zayed Book Prize. His sixth book, World Literature Decentered: Beyond the ‘West’ Through Turkey, Mexico and Bengal (Routledge: New York, 2021) will be out next year.