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Dawn Audiobook
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A searing autobiographical novel about a single night in prison suggests how broken spirits can be mended and dreams rebuilt through imagination and human kindness
In Dawn, translated into English for the first time, legendary Turkish feminist Sevgi Soysal brings together dark humor, witty observations, and trenchant criticism of social injustice, militarism, and gender inequality.
As night falls in Adana, köftes and cups of cloudy raki are passed to the dinner guests in the home of Ali—a former laborer who gives tight bear hugs, speaks with a southeastern lilt, and radiates the spirit of a child. Among the guests are a journalist named Oya, who has recently been released from prison and is living in exile on charges of leftist sympathizing, and her new acquaintance, Mustafa. A swift kick knocks down the front door and bumbling policemen converge on the guests, carting them off to holding cells, where they’ll be interrogated and tortured throughout the night.
Fear spools into the anxious, claustrophobic thoughts of a return to prison, just after tasting freedom. Bristling snatches of Oya’s time in prison rush back—the wild curses and wilder laughter of inmates, their vicious quarrels and rapturous belly-dancing, or the quiet boon of a cup of tea. Her former inmates created fury and joy out of nothing. Their brimming resilience wills Oya to fight through the night and is fused with every word of this blazing, lucid novel.
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“With a clarity and courage rooted in her own experiences as a political prisoner, Sevgi Soysal unflinchingly exposed the suffering and defiance of women in 1970s Turkey…A brutal but ultimately rewarding novel, and a timely and typically sensitive translation by Maureen Freely.”
— Alev Scott, author of Ottoman Odyssey
Quotes
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“Dawn is daringly explicit about the tribulations of the female body, from accounts of sexual assault in prison to the shame women feel about menstruation…Freely’s translation is clean, colloquial, and confident."
— New York Times -
“[Dawn] powerfully underscores how the threat of violence drives all the characters into suspicion and paranoia. This story of persecution convinces with its urgency and humanity.”
— Publishers Weekly
Awards
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A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice of the Week
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About Sevgi Soysal
Sevgi Soysal (1936–1976), born in Istanbul, wrote endearing and illuminating story collections, novels, and memoirs before her death at the age of forty. She won the prestigious Orhan Kemal Award for Best Novel for Noontime in Yenisehir, which she wrote while in prison. Dawn was first published in 1975, a companion to her memoirs of prison life.