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''A few hours after the incident, Aziz Bey went home. He sat for a while in the light of a blinking bulb that settled over the room like a grave illness, and with eyes brimming with tears that just could not fall, he looked at a shattered moonlight that was reflected in the dirty waters of the Golden Horn..''
The writing of Ayfer Tunç is in essence urban, and yet she manages to imbue her characters with a fragile humanity and an old-fashioned sense of the melancholy of modern life. Aziz Bey is at once the most genuine and the saddest of all her heroes. Here we see the life of an ordinary Turkish man, a master tambour player of local fame, whose life stretches from Istanbul to Beirut because of his obsessive love for Maryam. We witness the fading of this love with the passage of time and changing of circumstances, bringing us closer to this man than to many other modern protagonists. With the soft touch of an accomplished writer, the life of this singular musician is laid bare in all its sweetness and mediocrity, until we are almost sure that we might catch a glimpse of him next time we visit the vibrant, all-night bars of Istanbul.
About the author
Story writer and novelist Ayfer Tunç - is one of the most respected and widely read authors in Turkish literature - broke onto the literary scene with her first short story book, The Yore Hotel, which was highly praised by both the literary circles and readers. She started working as a journalist in 1989 and then as Editor-in-Chief at Yap¿ Kredi Publishing House between 1999-2004. Apart from her novels, she has also written many screenplays. Tunç's work is concerned with virtues of being a lonely city dweller and a human being, with deep insight into the tribulations of living in contemporary Turkey. With her book My Parents Will Visit You If You Don't Mind: Our Life, she won the international Balkanika Literary Award in 2003. The same year her screenplay Cloud in the Sky, inspired by Sait Faik's short stories, was filmed and televised. The book was translated into six Balkan languages, along with the collection, The Aziz Bey Incident. The novels The Night of the Green Fairy and The Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse remain her bestsellers. She has also co-authored a non-fiction study named Two Faced Sexuality with Oya Ayman.
Summary
Here is the life of an ordinary Turkish man, a master tambour player of local fame, whose life stretches from Istanbul to Beirut because of his obsessive love for Maryam. We witness the fading of this love with the passage of time and changing of circumstances, bringing us closer to this man than to many other modern protagonists.
