Foreword

This article provides an introduction to the special issue Reading Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar Today, edited by the author. It lays out the historical context in which Tanpinar composed his literary works, the national and international reception of the author and the specific perspectives in which the essays in the volume interpret Tanpinar’s works. This issue responds to the increasing national and international interest in Tanpınar. It complicates and contributes to our understanding of the Turkish modernist, whose work has recently been incorporated into “the European universal library.” While translations in English bring his novels to a wider audience, international discovery and dissemination of literary works by a non-Western author typically result in their appropriation by and for the world literary public. In Tanpınar’s case, his work has come to represent a presumed essence of Turkish literature and culture of the first half of the twentieth century, “combining a European literary voice with the Ottoman sensibilities of the Near East”, as described on Penguin Random House’s website. Tanpınar is perceived as the cultural bridge between East and West; tradition and modernity; the Ottoman past and the Republic’s present; all crystallized in the image of Istanbul’s Bosporus, the strait that separates Europe from Asia. In view of Tanpınar as the next Turkish author of world literature (after Pamuk), and of his work as a national cultural product of exportation, the articles in this issue contextualize and critically examine such local and global appropriations. They do not make claims to authentic “local” literary categories or hold his work up to the global standards of readability; instead, in their variety and originality, they aspire to create an attentive and continuing dialogue that suggests a healthy future for Tanpınar studies. The article finally argues that in light of Tanpınar’s multiple and contradictory identities, a dialectical approach is necessary to understand his work.