The Bridge of the Golden Horn is a coming-of-age novel, an account of an education, sentimental, sexual, political, theatrical, literary. A Turkish teenager, the unnamed heroine, signs up as a Gastarbeiter in Germany. She leaves Istanbul and works on an assembly line in Berlin and lives in a factory hostel. Özdamar’s novel is a witty, picaresque account of a precocious teenager and young woman refusing to become wise, of hectic years lived between Berlin and Istanbul, Istanbul and Ankara. These are years of sometimes grim repression, particularly in Turkey, but also of a hope and optimism that seem almost unimaginable today. The Bridge of the Golden Horn is a novel of Berlin winters and summers by the Sea of Marmara, of the streets and smells of Berlin and Istanbul and of the eternally smoky cafés of left-wing intellectuals.
Author
Emine Sevgi Özdamar
Born in Malatya in Turkey, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, lived in a number of towns before her parents finally settled in Istanbul. Still a teenager and unable to speak a word of German, she went to Germany in 1965 as a Gastarbeiter to save up to go to drama school. Özdamar returned to Turkey, studied acting, became involved in radical politics and left Turkey for Berlin again during the period of military repression in the 1970′s. She acted on stage in Berlin, Paris, Avignon, and Dusseldorf and appeared in a number of films. She first wrote plays, before publishing stories and novels in German which have won numerous prizes and been translated into several languages. She lives in Berlin.
Translator
Martin Chalmers
Martin Chalmers grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, and after many years in Birmingham and London now lives in Rixdorf in Berlin. He studied history at the universities of Glasgow, Birmingham and Bochum. Martin Chalmers has translated many leading German-language authors into English. His book translations include Europe, Europe and The Silences of Hammerstein by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, The Passport (Der Mensch ist ein grosser Fasan auf der Welt) by Herta Müller and The Orphanage by Hubert Fichte. He edited and translated a selection of stories by Erich Fried under the title Children and Fools and edited Beneath Black Stars, a volume of contemporary Austrian fiction.
Other translations include Summer Resort by Esther Kinsky and Brussels, the Gentle Monster or the Disenfranchisement of Europe by Hans Magnus Enzensberger. In 2004 Martin Chalmers was awarded the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for The Lesser Evil, his translation of the post-1945 Diaries of Victor Klemperer.
Published by
Serpent's Tail,
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The Bridge of the Golden Horn is a coming-of-age novel, an account of an education, sentimental, sexual, political, theatrical, literary. A Turkish teenager, the unnamed heroine, signs up as a Gastarbeiter in Germany. She leaves Istanbul and works on an assembly line in Berlin and lives in a factory hostel. Özdamar’s novel is a witty, picaresque account of a precocious teenager and young woman refusing to become wise, of hectic years lived between Berlin and Istanbul, Istanbul and Ankara. These are years of sometimes grim repression, particularly in Turkey, but also of a hope and optimism that seem almost unimaginable today. The Bridge of the Golden Horn is a novel of Berlin winters and summers by the Sea of Marmara, of the streets and smells of Berlin and Istanbul and of the eternally smoky cafés of left-wing intellectuals.