The Stone Building and Other Places

Book excerpt: "Aslı Erdoğan is an exceptionally perceptive and sensitive writer who always produces perfect literary texts."—Orhan Pamuk "One volume of short stories, The Stone Building and Other Places has become a bestseller in Turkey."—The New York Times "Beautifully written and honestly told, as tender as the tulip gardens of Istanbul and as brave as the human heart."—Elif Safak, author of The Forty Rules of Love Three interconnected stories feature women whose lives have been interrupted by forces beyond their control. Exile, serious illness, or the imprisonment of one's beloved are each met with versions of strength and daring, while there is no undoing what fate has wrought. These atmospheric, introspective tales culminate in an experimental, multi-voiced novella, whose "stone building" is a metaphor for the various oppressive institutions—prisons, police headquarters, hospitals, and psychiatric asylums—that dominate the lives of all of these characters. Here is a literary distillation of the alienation, helplessness, and controlled fury of exile and incarceration—both physical and mental—presented in a series of moving, allegorical portraits of lives ensnared by the structures of power. Aslı Erdoğan (Istanbul, 1967) was arrested and imprisoned by the Turkish government in a sweeping roundup of dissident voices after the failed coup attempt of July 2016. The subject of both PEN International and PEN America advocacy campaigns, she has published novels, collections of short stories and poetic prose, and selections from her political essays. As a journalist, she has covered controversial topics such as state violence, discrimination, and human rights, for which she has been persecuted in a variety of ways.