Description:
Burhan Sönmez (b.1965) is a Kurdish-Turkish novelist and former human rights lawyer now living in Britain. His work—Istanbul Istanbul, Stone and Shadow, Labyrinth—circles exile, memory, and fractured identity. Labyrinth (trans. Ümit Hussein, Other Press, 2019) is his most Borgesian; it's literally named after Borges book of essays. Boratin, a blues singer, jumps from the Bosphorus Bridge and survives with no memory of himself. He can list the Ottoman sultans but not his own mother. Time collapses—Jesus might have lived in 3AD or last week. About forgetting and remembering and everything in between.