Jamesian Intertexts in Selim İleri’s Bu Yalan Tango

Year 2013, Issue: 37, 63 - 78, 01.04.2013

Meltem Kıran-raw

Abstract

Selim İleri, one of the prolific and leading writers of modern Turkish Literature, frequently draws upon literature and the arts in his fiction. Published in 2010, his novel Bu Yalan Tango [This Delusive Tango] may well be the most intertextually dense novel he has produced to date. Revolving around the story of a ninety-year-old woman novelist whose career spans a long period from the 1930s to the 2000s, the novel alludes to a vast array of Turkish and non-Turkish literary figures. One such figure is Henry James, the Master, who is obliquely yet effectually inscribed into the novel’s narrative scheme and conceptual groundwork.

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