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THE CITY IN CRIMSON CLOAK / / 1.1.2016 |
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”The City in Crimson Cloak ”, Ash Erdogan’s major work and arguably her masterpiece, has established her as a unique writer and a modem classic both in her country and abroad. Generally referred as a ’poem— novel’, ’poetry of the twilight zone’, ’verses of poetry saturated with bitter juice of life and existential suffering’, the novel in fact follows the tradition of 19th century city novel; however, it uses the modern techniques of intertwined novels. Since its publication in Turkey in 1998, the book has made more than a dozen editions and been translated into several languages. In 2003, it was accepted into MARG (”Marg” means ”spinal column” as well as ”margin” in Norwegian) series of Gyldendal along with writers as Helene Cixous, W. G. Sebald, Nathan Englander etc. and received great reviews, comparing the author to Joyce and Kafka. The same year, it was also published by Actes Sud in France, and based on that single book, Asli Erdogan was chosen amongst the 㨂 Writers of Future”, by the French magazine Lire. However, the biggest success of the book was in Germany. Wonderfully translated into German by A. Gillitz Acar and A. Hoch and published by sverlag in 2008 in ”Turkish Library”( a ion of classical and contemporary Turkish literature), the book received enormous attention from the press and the readers, selling over eleven thousand copies, as well as literary circles. Over forty reviews have appeared in newspapers and literary magazines such as Die Welt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Der Tagesspiegel, Freitag, Die Presse, Neue Ziircher Zeitung, Die Berliner Literaturkritik written by prominent writers as Ingo Arend, Ruth Kluger, Barbara Frischmuth etc. The novel was chosen as the ”best translation into German from Turkish” following year. In the last decade, ”The City in Crimson Cloak” has been published in USA by Soft Skull (which received the ”Best Independent Publisher Prize” the same year), in Sweden(published by Ramus and also made the paperback edition), in Arabic (by Cadmus), in Bosnian (BUYBOOK), in Macedonian, Bulgarian, Albanian and Bulgarian. Currently the book is being translated into Danish, Italian, Persian and Kurdish.
” The originality of this book lays in the constant clash of inner and outer world, which blurs our concept of reality. What the author in fact never lost is her capability to depict a dangerous fall, a complete ruin, which so far in literature only man could live till end. A truly feminine sensibility, with no mixing up of gender roles voices itself. Not only Orpheus, but also Persephone, the queen and the prisoner of the underworld talks to us through these pages.” (Ruth KlOger, Die Welt)
” In the same way that Dublin and Joyce belong together, or Praha and Kafka, for me from now on Rio will be inextricably bound together with the name Asli Erdogan. With this volume, she writes herself into a dominating tradition linked to last century’s novels: The novel of the city.”
(Aftenposten, Norway)
” There are these rare literary works who grab you and conquer your mind because they tell you about an existence totally deprived of security nets, on the border to death. Asli Erdogan has managed to a novel about a young woman lost in her desperate will to experience her limits and art the same time about a writer who lives her novel. In this Brazilian mirror game, Ash Erdogan occurs not only a true master but a magic narrator but as a unique female voice in a male dominated genre.” (Eugene Schoulgin, writer)
”The author’s name is whispered in the same breath with Malcolm Lowry and Antonin Artaud.”(Libre Belgique)
”Ash Erdogan is an exceptionally perceptive and sensitive writer who always produces perfect literary texts.” (Orhan Pamuk)
Brief description
”The City in Crimson Cloak” is the title of two novels, the novel published and the name of the lost, incomplete novel its protagonist is trying to write. We read both.
In fact, the main protagonist of both novels is a city: Rio de Janeiro. The city in crimson cloak, woven fiber by fiber of human blood and suffering, concealing its Janus faces behind various masks. Chaos, jungle, violence and the anarchy of the body are its main axis. A city heaven coexists with hell, hunger with pleasure, death with life.
The name of the heroine who is trying to write her own, devastating experience as a foreign, lonely woman in this notorious city, an experience of war, a fatal chess match or a dangerous, deceiving game of mirrors, is Ozgiir. {” Ozgiir” means ”free” in Turkish and is a name that can be used by both sexes, significant facts that open up the underlying themes of the book as freedom vs destiny, catharsis vs captivity.) Ozgiir, alienated from her past and at the edge of a mental breakdown, knows that she is now a captive of Rio and has a single defense against the violence of the city: Writing. As we read parts and pieces of Ozgiir’s unfinished novel, with a protagonist of its own, for the time being named only as her initial’O’, we begin to put Ozgur’s story together, a story of destruction, fail and ruin, combined with a great will to defeat violence and make peace with life. Meanwhile, the narrator tells us of a single day, in fact the very last day of Ozgur’s life. The two levels of reality sometimes compliment, sometimes contradict each other as we read the story of a novel being written.
The journey through the streets of Rio is a journey into a labyrinth set up on more than two dimensions, both in space and time, the past, the future and the present are woven together. A labyrinth full of dead ends, traps, echoes, uncanny prophecies... As Ozgur traces the paths of her written self, Ä.’, through the shantytowns, Candomble rituals, gunfights and robberies, the violence and eroticism of back streets, Rio is born as a real city and as a metaphor for Death, slowly being transformed into the manifestation of Ozgur’s inner world and her own violence. facing mirrors, the two reflect one another, yet at the same time they are dangerous opponents. As Ozgiir step by step approaches her death, which she had narrated as a finale to her unfinished novel, we encounter street people, masks and African rituals, carnivals and favelas, armed robbers and mad men, hunger, dancing, fireworks, the desire in the kingdom of flesh, the betrayal, the night and the jungle. While we delve deeper into the two concentric novels, the borderline between the two Rio’s, the real and the fictional, starts to blur, as the borderline between Ozgur and her narrated self, the metaphors of
Life and Death seem to intermingle in an intangible way.. And at the finale, infinite moment of death, the two novels, the two layers of reality overlap, Rio and Ozgur, the two opponents in this fatal game of mirrors, become unified. life and Death. The transformation of the narrator to her narration, the past into future, the inner world into outer reality is completed. Rio once again emerges as a glorious metaphor for life, while Ozgur is essentially another Orpheus that has opened the doors of Underground with her writing, only to follow her own Eurydike back into the Land of the Dead.
The novel is essentially seven chapters, representing seven gates to death. The texts written by Ozgur are italicized. Her language is dense, poetic, musical, at times a cross fire of metaphors and images. The more distanced, story—telling style of the narrator gradually comes to resemble that of Ozgur, becoming more and more vivid, violent, ruthless and even ’corporal’. In fact, in the finale, at the moment of death, the two novels repeat the same long sentence, a glorifying description of the night starting in Rio, a farewell and an ode to Life.
Synopsis
The first chapter, ”The Fireworks Day”, opens with a gunfight on a scorching Sunday in Rio. Ozgur, in the throes of a nervous breakdown, is in her basement flat, located next to the slopes a local war between favelas is taking place, trying to write the story of her own destruction, smoking, staring at bare walls. Surrounded by the jungle, the interior festering with tropical humidity, the house is an extension of her body. The murderous heat, newspapers filled with violence, a phone call from her mother, the ironic significance of fireworks, references to the film ”Black Orpheus”... The stories of both Rio and Ozgur unfold.
In the second chapter, ”The Madman of Santa Teresa”, Ozgur is now on the outside, wandering through the streets of Santa Teresa, a poor, lively district semi—evacuated because of the war. Watching the city from her ”Istanbul point”, she takes up her pen. Fragments of memory, migration, loneliness, the flight to the realm of fiction... The clash between fiction and reality begins when she almost fights two gangsters, a s scene she had already described in her novel. We meet the two mad men of Santa Teresa, the good—natured outlaw Eduardo and the genius madman, Olieveira, a famous artist of the past. Ozgur directs her essential questions on freedom and death and art to Oliveira, receiving total silence as a response. ”Eli, Eli! Lama sabekhtani?” (Father,father! Why have you forsaken me?) is one of the key sentences of this chapter and the novel.
”Far Away”, is an internal monologue. Exile, entrapment, separation, a quest for meaning in a city of violence... Writing seems to be the only defense against a harsh reality and the only to give meaning back to the world and put together a fragmented identity.
In ”Downhill”, the language becomes more predominant, as we read through flashbacks, Ozgur’s descriptions of the carnival and the favela, characterized as the Land of the Dead. In this chapter, also is ped the first hint that 0 has been killed at the end of the novel, A dialogue with a small girl, who appears and disappears suddenly, a portent of disaster, ends the chapter.
The fifth chapter, ”The New World”, takes place in a foul smelling diner that feels a submarine, between alcoholics and prostitutes. The most crucial passage we read from Ozgur’s notebook: The
story of a starving man eating his own vomit... Ozgur tears of that page to replace it with a single sentence: ”I am writing to make myself look bigger than I actually am, because I am... so, so small.”
”The Zero Point”, opens with another quotation from the Bible: ”Let the Dead Bury the Dead”. Ozgur is finally ready to write the zero point of her fall, the very beginning of her collapse. This is her first encounter with a murdered woman, on Palm Sunday. Her first encounter with the corpse she carries within herself... Now she has finally managed to finish her novel, stepped out of her own story.
A menacing dialogue with another mad man, the unlived love affair between Ozgur and Eli, a black, orphaned, homosexual dancer, a lyrical passage that lets the reader face the infinity of the ocean, the first opening of the novel that has been deliberately claustrophobic, followed by a torture scene at the police station... The sixth chapter fully develops Ozgur’s story.
”And the Fireworks Explode”: The night starts with Ozgur in full consciousness of her exile and loneliness. She has written a novel, scored her ”insignificant, insolent, puny victory against death”, put together beautiful, artful lies ”that lick her wounds”. Only to realize that she has never been able to love life for its own sake. Now she is even lonelier than before, all alone in her d universe.
As she tries to avoid Eli, she walks to a dangerous back street, O. had walked before, to find herself in a robbery attempt. A young girl with a broken bottle asks for her bag, which contains her newly finished novel, in fact only a green notebook. Ozgur fights back, and by the time she realizes the girl has an armed accomplice, a gun is put to her head. The final passage of dying, we read from Ozgur’s novel when it looks as if the whole of life has been compressed into a single dimensionless point to expand towards eternity, a glorifying description of the city that has killed her: Rio de Janeiro. ”She died precisely the way she had wanted to die,” is the last sentence of the book.
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The City in Crimson Cloak
Innate failings of compassion — in which we, as Erdogan writes, “naturally have more pity for a sick dog than a sick man” — don’t help lighten the mood here. Erdogan’s Rio is not a city for the timid. And Ozgur, neither outright prude nor shameless Parnassian, is clearly at sea as to how to live and work in such environs. The fact that she’s writing a novel abets her plunge into further social and emotional isolation. As the boundaries between reality and Ozgur’s story—within—a—story blur, her descent toward death is not tragic or terrifying, but inevitable.
While this novel is oftentimes needlessly preoccupied with recycling images of poverty and brutality, the intrigue of The City in Crimson Cloak lies less in what it exploits than what it denies; namely, any intimate familiarity with its setting. Twice removed from her environment — first by foreignness, second by the isolation brought on by the act of writing — Ozgur is only able to unpack the surface characteristics of Rio. For author Erdogan, this approach is a risky one, but it’s also honest, as anyone who’s taught English in unfamiliar environs will attest. And therein lies the greatest surprise the novel has to offer: the reader is able to empathize with Ozgur despite an emotional and narrative distance from her. If this is a form of highbrow noir from another shore, it looks very, very good.
The City in Crimson Cloak is at once the title of an unfinished autobiographical novel following a protagonist named O and the title of Asli Erdogan’s novel about the (fictional) author, a Turkish woman named Ozgur. Ozgur, on the cusp of 30, has spent two years in Rio de Janeiro, trying to write the city around her into a shape that might be understood by her imagined reader: ”a sophisticated, educated someone who had never experienced hunger, and who would be sitting down in a comfortable chair and doing the least risky occupation in the world —— reading...” As it happens, the novel begins on what will be the day of Ozgur’s death, though she, of course, does not know that. Two years on, Ozgur, in her ragged jeans and worn—down shoes, looks a woman without a dime to her name, subsisting on warm tea and cheap cigarettes, yet still appears to her neighbors as a gringa, voluntarily shrugging off privilege that they were never offered. In nating sections, we are introduced to a former painter who once lived in London and is now considered the village madman, quoting passages of Keats and Macbeth; Ozgur’s onetime friend, Eli a gay actor; and scenes describing harrowing conditions of violence and poverty. The novel might have been richer had Erdogan taken advantage of the structure to interrogate Ozgur’s motives and perceptions more fully than Ozgur herself can. But it does succeed as a sort of reverse postcard — the hazards of the tropics seen in the eyes of a woman from winter climes. ——Amy Benfer
Library Journal reivew:
Forest Turner — Library Journal
Physicist—turned—novelist Erdogan debuts in English with a meandering yet heartfelt work set among the favelas (”shantytowns”) of Rio de Janeiro. Drawing from her experiences during a two—year stay in Rio in the mid—1990s, Erdogan reinvents herself as the protagonist, Ozgur, a young Turkish woman teaching English and writing a half—fictional novel called The City in Crimson Cloak, featuring a main character named O. The multilayered disguises employed by the author effectively mirror the nature of Rio, ”the city that never removes its mask, not even after carnival.” As Ozgur wanders aimlessly through the chaotic streets one fateful Sunday, musing on the downward arc of her life and scratching out the final passages of her novel, her melancholy becomes as oppressive as the humidity. Erdogan supplies earthy, seductive description that accentuates the dark side of the tropics, painting Rio as a hellish labyrinth that lures its residents, native and foreigner a, to their doom. There is a strong sense of social justice present in the finely observed street scenes, but ultimately this is less about the city and more about one woman’s failed quest. Recommended for large fiction collections, this work may also appeal to fans of
The complete review’s Review:
The City in Crimson Cloak is a story of being down and our in Rio de Janeiro. The young Turkish protagonist, Ozgur, always has the option of leaving the abyss and reluming to her Homeland, but roo lias a good 00id on her. it s summer vacation time at the language schooi vviiere she leaches., and she barely earns any money giving private lessons, so she’s reduced so near—dcstitution — but in this city of extremes, with its relentless heat her hunger, thirst, and general discomfort are almost a given anyway.
Ozgur is writing a book — yes, The City in Crimson Cloak. U‘s one way of trying to keep her sanity, of making sense of it all:
Writing meant first and foremost putting things into order, and Rio. if it were to be defined in just one word, was CHAOS,
She hopes: ’’to capture Rio a butterfly in her hand, and to gently imprison it in her words, without killing it”, but the delicate imagery stands in stark contrast to the brutal urban agglomeration that is that city. There’s violence every, and all the manifestations of the worst poverty: disease, hunger, filth. The bodies of both the living and the dead are literally lying in the streets, and when there are fireworks it’s not as some pari of a carefree celebration but raihejf a signal that another drug shipment has arrived.
The City in Crimson Cloak isn’t a wallow in self—pity, or a love (or hate) letter to Rio. O/.giir isn’t exactly reveling in the experience, but the city has her by the scruff of the neck, and it continues to exert a powerful fascination. The heat makes it impossible to go much beyond a soil ol ioipor, yet there’s an ovei—abundance ol file and experience all around, cvciy action fraught with potential —— including that of the most extreme violence.
O/.giir doesn’t dwell on ii much, but Rio is a sort of anti—Turkey, and not just because at this time of year if s probably near freezing there, even as the summer heat in Brazil hovers constantly around forty degrees Celsius. She still lias her Turkish lifeline — and wishes her mother had more to say when she talks to her on the phone — but is also freed from many constraints: she doesn’t have to carry an ID, no one notices that she doesn’t wear a bra. Still, given how she’s living it doesn’t sound the trade—off speaks much ir? the favour of staying But she docs.
The City in Crimson Cloak describes Oxgtir’s day, while sections from her writing are also interspersed in the text. What she writes about in her ’The City in Crimson Cloak’ resembles what she lives, making for two close variations on the theme. F/rdogan captures the city well: if s not a pretty picture, but it’s a vibrant one. The stifling heat, the violence, the sheer arbitrariness of so much comes across very well — this sense of: ”Everything decayed so quickly in the tropics, and revived just as swiftly”.
There’s no one Ozgiir is really close to, no one she can have a real conversation wish. The lew conversations she does have, such as with her mother on the telephone, arc only a very dinned interaction. She’s frequently wanting to avoid people (often lor good reason), and the sense ot isolation, ol being at sea in a flood of humanity, is prevalent throughout the book . Conditions in Rio — its apparent lawlessness, as well as a certain carefreeness (that spills into indifference) — accentuate the feeling.
flic City in Crimson Cloak is an evocative novel, a city—portrait that is particularly strong on the dark underbeiiy of Rio. The book—wilhin—a—book idea works well enough most of me time, a different reflection of her state of mind and situation, and the descriptions are striking enough that the attempts at more poetic passages usually work well enough. The ending is perhaps an appropriate conclusion, though it feels a bit a very literary ’way out’.
An interesting novel of a city, with some fine writing.
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l’indicible
Ne 4 Kabotil c—n 1952, Atiq Rahimj quilte I’Afghanistan pour le Pakistan al’tige de 22 ans puis demands i’asiie politique en France oii ii passe un doc utrat de communication a la Sorbonno. 11 est 1’auteur de deux romans, Tern cl cendres (qu’il a lui—meme transpose au cinema en 11000) el Les mills matsons du rave et de la terreur.
V. Terre at. amlres, le premier roman d’Atiq Rahiini, est une mise en echec de la barbarie par ia seule force du verbe. Prt—s d’une riviere assechee, au bord d’une route, un vieillard fane par le soleil et la poussierc attend. II attend que passe une venture qui pour— rait l’emmener de I’autre cote de la valldo. a la mine oil travaille son fils. Les heures ddfilent Aupres du vieil— lard, un enfant joue. C’esr son petit— liis, devenu sourd depths que les So— vietiques out bombarde le village. Et il Joue, cet enfant qui ne comprend pas pourquoi ceux qui 1’enlourent out perdu leur voix, il joue dans les ronces et les rocailles sous le soleil ecrasanl d’une matinee d’autotrme.
« Gtand—pAre, les Russes sont—ils venus prendre les votx de tout le monde ? Que font—ils de mutes ces voix ? » Le vieillard songe. II revolt les bombes sur le village, les cris des siens lorsque les flamraes les one avales. sa femme et sa bru rfechiquetees, ses voi— sins massacres. C’est cette horreur qu’il vient annoncer it son fils. Mats comment dire I’indiaM? ? Atiq Rahimi a rruuve un ton, un phrase, qui lais— senl le ieetetir per,rifle, Le tutoiement qu’il utilise tom au long de 1’histoire est ia voix de la conscience et fait de ce court roman un livre majeur.
Le ravissement d’Asli
’. Nee cn 1987 a Istanbul, Asli Erdo— gan a connu le Bresil aprte avoir fait des etudes de physique quantique en Tdrqule. Auteur de nouvelies et d’un roman, idle decide d’Acrire La villa dnnt to rape csl muge a son retour de Rio en meme temps qu’clle abandonee son mdtier d’enseignante a l’Uraver— site pour faire de la redterche.
. Ozgtir, etudiante turque, ddbarque un.jaur it Rio oii personne ne fat tend. Pour une fillo d’ls— tanbul, la die bresilienne devrait faire peur, la poosser 4 ftjir ce monde totalement dtranger. Or, e’est la fascination qui pcend ledessus etOzgiirn’aqu’un de— sir : decrire ces lieux de perdition, ra— conter la pauvretd des faveias, croi— ser ia mort et la vie, pkmger dans la jungle des rueiles puames. Detndtaie roman d’Asli Erdogan, La villa hml la cape esl. rouge est une ffiuvre d’un lyrismegntndissant. On suit, 4 travels un style de plus en plus sensuei, la passion do ritdroirie pour les lieux, sa vo— lontti de se laisser bercer par une vie aussi dansante que violente. C’est a la ibis une plongee vers l’enfer et une recherche de la volupte. Ix; rytlune de— vient vertigineux Est—on vraiment loin de la Turquie dans cette oeuvre foi sonnante ? La romandere a attendu d’etre rentree dans son pays pour en commencer la redaction et garder ainsi la distance necessaire. On pourrait pourtanc parler de ddrive car Asli Er— dogan, conune son heroine, est de— venue une etrangere partout: Bresilienne a Istanbul, Turque a Rio. Settle i’eerittire la suuvp de ce mouventent parpetuel. C’est ce qu’clle exprime dans ce fine poissettx, sauvage, ou tons les Sue! se ressemblent un peu.
Virulent passe
—— Fils d’un psychiater; nord—corten, Chang—rae Lee err tie en 1985 en Coree du Snd oii s’etaienc refugies ses parents. Q a uois tins qitand su faniille timigre aux Etats—Unis. Aprils de briliantes etudes a Vale, il deviwit analysts financier et, ii la mort de sa mere, suit des ateliers dec none pour se consa— crer a la litteraturc II vu a Ridgewood (New Jersey)
6 Le retour du passe et I’integraticm sont certainemem deux des themes les plus difficiles 4 trailer cn Uttfiranirp. Preuve de son talent, Chang—ran Lee a aborde ces sqjets avec simplicite et pertirtaice. Son premier roman, langiu: natale, mete ainsi rhistnire d’un ccupio face 4 la mort de son enfant et le rfidt du Fds d’un immigre coreen se sou venant de son pent, plus paruculie— reinenc do son anglais approximatil Les sombwsjeux du posse” out encore crcusd ces obsessions. Chang—rae Lee se penche ici sur le destin d’un vieux docteur nippon. bien install dans la banlieue new—yorkaise. Mais, it 1’occa sion d’tm incendte, le gentil prartcien voit son imposture se rappeler it lui: il n’est nl japonais nt medecin. Durant la Sticonde Guerre rnomSiaie, cc Coreen officia comntc aide—soignant dans un camp en Btrnianie. oil il s’occupait des prostitute; —— contraintcs — destinees aux soldats ntppons Pour le jeunc homrr.e tl’alors, famouraniverasous les traits d’une. jolie femme, done lc destin tragique. modlfiera a jamais ceiui du futm” VTai—faux docteur Hata L elegance et l’inieiligcnn’ de 1’auteuf nous font atiendre la traduction de son troi— sieme roman, Aloft ■ en version frauqaise : En kalis . hes trombros feux du passe traduit da I’ar.
Erdogan oppnar brawcSJiip
i() November 2010 Id 01:00 . iippdaterad: IS november 2010 ki 14:35 Prosa Scaaen i dsn roda kappan Ash Erdogan 213 s. Ramus (Kmmzi Peiertnii Kent, 1998) Overs; Ulla Lundslrtkit
For tv a dr sedan introducerades den torkiska iSr<arinaan Ash Erdogan pa svenska med sin debutroman ”Den mirakuldse mandarinen”, som krctsade string minuet av Istanbul hos iva turkar i schweizHk forskmgring. Och m? ges .Ash Brdogans andra roman. ”9taden i den rdda kappan”, n* pa svenska. Vi motor aver; dar en turic som lamnat hemlandet. en kvinna som sedan tva ar bor i Rio,
Men Ozgur, som kvinnan heter. drummer sig inte tilibaka. Hon har lovat sig sj§lv alt inte ISmna Rio ffrrr&n iron Sr fSrdig med stadcn. I Ion vtH inte bSra den med sig rest.cn av iivcL
Men Ozgfirs mfsSr Wk a lit vwrre tor varje dag. Mon kom til! Rio tor imiversitefs’arbete. men far sparken. Hon haakar sig from pu att ge kurser i engelska, men studenterna biir fibre.
i’iii siut maste non ransonera tidningarnathi en i veckan, och hon tvingas dverge sina mcdelklassiga rdkvanor for enklare cigarefier. Vad som halier Ozgfrr h|a!pligt uppe Srromanen ’ton skriver, kaflad ’’Shulers i den rod;; kappan”.
Men Ash Ertiagsn skriver inte cn work in pmgress—rnmm av mcr traditiondit snitt. t Icnncs roman siuiar into med ait vi far vein nit huvudpersonen skriver den box vi just last. Erdogan smaller i still let samrnan Ozgisrs alitmer paniska upplevelse av siaden med den fiktiva rornanlexien. Ozgurs vandring nttor den socials hierarkin, trim de batfre sladsdelama fill kuHamas f.avelas.
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Staden i den roda kappan
ASLi ERDOgAN. En av mina forsta natter i Rio de Janeiro hade jag en fruktansvard mardrom om jordens undergang. Den kanda Kristusstatyn fick liv och steg ner till staden for att doma ievande och doda. Ingen slapp undan.
I turkiska Ash Erdogans roman ’’Staden i den roda kappan” fran 1998, den andra av Erdo“gans romaner att oversattas till svenska, kanner jag igen min mardrom. Romanens huvudperson, turkiska Ozgiir, befmner sig i ett Rio vasensskilt fran det som syns pa glansiga vykort. En stad av extrem fattigdom, droger, dod och forruttnelse. Over det dygn som romanen utspelar sig ligger en fuktig och kvavande hetta. Ozgiir, sysslolos och pengalos, ror sig genom de delar av staden som flickan fran Ipanema aldrig skulle betrada: fattiga favelas och de stokiga stadsdelarna Lapa och Santa Teresa. Hon ar en Orfeus i underjorden, vars enda mojlighet att bli fri fran stadens grepp om henne och atervanda till ytan ar att skriva klart sin roman ’’Staden i den roda kappan”. Sa vaxer en romair i romanen ffam, som ju langre det lider blir svarare och svarare att sarskilja fran ramen. Vad hander nar fiktionen och verkligheten kolliderar? Ar det mojligt att skriva absolut sant, om en stad eller ens om sig sjalv?
’’Staden i den roda kappan” ar pa manga satt intressant. Sprakligt pendlar den mellan en sentimental smetighet, kylig saklighet och kokett intellektualism — omsom irriterande och ganska trottande, omsom fortrollande. Huvudpersonen Ozgiir forblir en skickligt tecknad gata. Vad ar det for destruktiva krafter som halier henne kvar i Rio trots hennes ensamhet och likgiltighet? Allt man far veta ar att i Rio har Ozgiir funnit ’’Nollpunkten” — platsen i tid och rum varifran ingen atervando fmns. Den personliga undergangen, omojlig att undslippa.
Amanda Svensson
forfattare
”iViiigic uiioyiible... ! he end is oiiignihctsisi. cinetnalic AUot’.bliuicl
”sViy new favourite author,..’’ biter no. I V4
Krdogan writes a text that slowly ears it way into the readers mind, a text that in its existential obstinanev opens a precipice.”
Svcnska Dagbladel
”Linguistically, it is a joy to read her lengthy, illustrative descriptions of Rio.”
Ostgota Correspondenten
”A novel that concerns with strong linguistic mode of funding, but also presents a series of sharp images taken from that which is living in the overheated city”
Skinska Dagbladet |
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