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| (photo: Erol Ahmed) | |
İnci Atrek is the author of Holiday Country (Flatiron, January 9, 2024), a coming-of-age novel that is equal parts escapist and seductive, and set in a Turkish seaside retreat. She holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from Wellesley College.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
Intergenerational love triangle along the Turkish seaside, and an exploration of cultural identity, language, and mother-daughter dynamics.
On your nightstand now:
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, I Could Live Here Forever by Hanna Halperin, Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I was obsessed with Brian Jacques's Redwall series. Looking back, so much of what I read as a kid were science fiction and fantasy, two genres I haven't touched in years. Maybe it's time to revisit them?
Your top five authors:
An impossible answer, but here's an attempt that's both in no particular order and in a constant state of flux: Elif Batuman, Deborah Levy, David Szalay, Vladimir Nabokov, and Maggie Nelson.
Book you've faked reading:
There were definitely a few books I technically "read" without understanding anything at all. In high school, I decided to speed-read 30 or so pages of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness over lunch right before that afternoon's quiz. I'm a fast reader, and the section seemed short enough that finishing and understanding it was within the realm of possibility. The quiz was, of course, a catastrophe, but for some odd reason I didn't learn my lesson and continued saving each week's reading for the lunch before the quiz. This never happened with any other required reading--only Heart of Darkness. I guess I had this ridiculous idea that a short book should be easily conquerable, and I stubbornly kept trying to prove it. I have yet to return to that novella with the time and attention it deserves.
Book you're an evangelist for:
For women in their mid-to-late 30s who are waffling on whether or not they want children, I always recommend Sheila Heti's Motherhood. Not because it helps clear up any confusion, but because it makes the grueling ambivalence even worse, leading to rich conversations that I eagerly look forward to.
Book you've bought for the cover:
David Szalay's All That Man Is. I'll buy any book that has a single person against the backdrop of a vast ocean on the cover. Thankfully, I ended up loving it.
Book you hid from your parents:
None, but as an adult I continue to hide all my self-help books whenever my parents visit.
Book that changed your life:
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, which I read for the first time in class. It opened my eyes to how rewarding and complex the reading experience can be, as well as to the deeply manipulative and seductive power of language.
Favorite line from a book:
I love the ending of "Seven Years of Trips" in Olga Tokarczuk's Flights. It's a short passage about what it means to travel and what, exactly, we're left with once the trip is over and we've returned home: " 'The things I've seen are mine now,' the young man, suddenly revived, concluded, slapping his palm down on his thigh."
Five books you'll never part with:
I've lived in six countries and even more cities, so I've been forced to part with many books that I swore I'd never leave behind. Most of my favorites, I've had to buy over and over. But here are five that have remained with me, in their original form:
Brian Boyd's two Nabokov biographies, The Russian Years and The American Years. I requested these as a holiday present from my family a few years ago, and my father found and gifted me the first editions.
Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, gifted to me in college by a friend and fellow English major. Receiving that book was the first time I felt seen as a writer.
John Freely's A Bridge of Culture: Robert College--Boğaziçi University: How an American College in Istanbul Became a Turkish University. Like the Nabokov biographies, this is a pretty substantial book to schlep between countries, but I refuse to let it go. It's a detailed history of one of Turkey's most well-known universities that centers on my three favorite topics: Istanbul, Americans in Turkey, and academia.
Louise Glück's Averno, which has too much marginalia from my college days for me to ever part with.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Annie Ernaux's Simple Passion--the book in my library with the most sentences underlined.