The Lion and the Nightingale

After the 2016 coup attempt in his native Turkey, Kaya Genç – a novelist who also contributes to the New York Review of Books, The Guardian and Artforum – pondered the central conflict of his nation: its artistic soul versus its military might. To gain greater insight, Genç spent 2017 traveling throughout Turkey and speaking with citizens from all walks of life. His narrative provides a broad, deep overview of Turkish history and shows, from a unique and informative perspective, how the past weighs on Turkey’s present.

The London Review of Books called this “a spelling-binding story.” Bloomsbury said, “Weaving together… memoir, interview and… autobiography, Genç takes… a contemporary journey through the contradictory soul of the Turkish nation.”