Cold Nights of Childhood

Tezer OEzlu, Maureen Freely

From Shelf: translations read in 2023

A lyrical autofictional account of the author's fight to survive depression and carve out her own path in 1950s and 60s Istanbul

The narrator of Cold Nights of Childhood grows up in a rapidly changing Turkey, where the atmosphere is nationalist, patriarchal, technocratic. As a misfit in search of freedom, love and happiness, she escapes to Berlin, is overcome by depression on her return, and trapped in a psychiatry clinic for five years. After electroshock therapy and inhumane treatment, she is released into the care of friends and family, making tentative steps in a halting journey towards recovery. In her unique, unstructured style, Tezer OEzlu explores the extremity of her inner life and the painful pleasures of memory. Translated into English for the first time by Maureen Freely, this novel is a classic akin to The Bell Jar and Good Morning, Midnight.