The People of Madra & The Geese of Ida
“My life would make a novel,” said an elderly man when I stopped him on his way to his field to ask for a story. I took his words as a suggestion and started writing my novel-in-progress The People of Madra & The Geese of Ida, which is inspired by all the stories and tales I have collected in villages around cities of Balikesir and Izmir.
My novel follows Yavuz, an Aegean village boy, from the 1980s – the years following the brutal September 12 military coup - into the 2010s, when Istanbul is roaring with the Gezi Park Protests, more and more Syrian refugees are looking for ways to enter Europe and Yavuz is growing up and out of his village to see it all with his own eyes.
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Although, inevitably, political milestones in Turkey`s history occupy a space in the story, I pour my words more into how daily lives continue and dreams sprout even after being covered with a political cement hardened with fears. Such narratives help us go beyond the news headlines we read and form a more diverse and encompassing story of a landscape and its people.
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The first part of my novel, The People of Madra, was completed and submitted to Columbia University as my MFA thesis in August, 2016. I have been working on the second half, The Geese of Ida.
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To read an excerpt please click here or on the drawing on the right.
For comments please email: munirebozdemir@gmail.com
