Oylum Yılmaz
Novels
Real Life
It was as if time had sighed. And when it breathed out, it breathed out more than itself. Çukurcuma grew and expanded, its streets connected to other streets -and from the doors and windows of houses looking out onto the streets, hundreds of, thousands of womanlike ghosts poured out into the neighbourhood, and from there, into the entire city. A single sentence had covered the city like a murmur, “Our cause is scientific, political, literary.”
Bargains of desire, groundless suspicions, cruelty, those who have joined the holy forty, bone dry and lonesome sounds, groans. Fatma Aliye, Suat Derviş, Cahit Uçuk. Who are these women? Oylum Yılmaz tells the story of life, passing by, in need of words to be lived, as if she were slowly solving a crossword. She navigates her path with winding, insidious allure. What if life does not come into blossom anymore?
Real Life, a novel of a new voice, of love that cannot contain itself and of hope in darkness, received the Duygu Asena Novel Award, one of the most prestigious literary awards in Turkey... When real life becomes unbearable, everyone will turn to its spectre.
Witch
Witch is the story of a quest. The narrator’s hero is Ümran, keeper of extraordinary powers, in a nutshell, a devil! Mingling with the ancient spirits of Büyükada, she has bewitched everyone around her with fortunes she has told aided by djinns that have possessed her. However, the ability to see the future does not necessarily mean one can prevent events from happening... As the narrator keenly enters Ümran’s semi-fantastic world, she realizes that her story also changes. Ümran’s three freaks, Kocakarı, İren and Ferman, haunt the narrator now; a new quest begins with Büyükada’s lost fairy tales, uncanny history, sinister dreams, lies and rumours. And to cap it all off, when in the midst of it all Ümran disappears in a puff of smoke, the whole thing takes on the air of a detective story.
