The Wounded Age and Eastern Tales


 FERIT EDGÜ (b. 1936) is the author of more than forty books of prose, poetry, essays, and art criticism. He received his fine arts education in Germany and France. In 1976, he founded Ada Press, an important publishing venue for contemporary Turkish and international poetry. The press remained active until 1990. A member of the ’50s Circle of writers that included some of the most innovative modern Turkish voices, Edgü has had a transformative role in the development of Turkish short fiction. His short-story collection Bir Gemide (In a Ship) received the 1979 Sait Faik Prize, and his novel Eylülün Gölgesinde Bir Yaz (A Summer in September’s Shade) received the Sedat Simavi Literary Prize in 1988. Hakkari’ de Bir Mevsim (A Season in Hakkari), considered his masterpiece, was made into a movie and received several awards at the 1983 Berlin International Film Festival. His work has been translated into several languages, including French, German, Italian, and Japanese, and his novel Noone (Kimse) is available in English, in Fulya Peker’s translation.
 ARON AJI, the director of translation programs at the University of Iowa, is a native of Turkey and has translated works by modern and contemporary Turkish writers, including Bilge Karasu, Elif Shafak, Latife Tekin, Murathan Mungan, and Ferit Edgü. His Karasu translations include Death in Troy; The Garden of Departed Cats, which received the 2004 National Translation Award; and A Long Day’s Evening, which was a finalist for the 2013 PEN Translation Prize. Aji was president of the American Literary Translators Association from 2016 to 2019. He is co-translator with David Gramling of Mungan’s Valor: Stories, which was awarded the 2021 Global Humanities Translation Prize.
 THE WOUNDED AGE and EASTERN TALES
 FERIT EDGÜ
 Translated from the Turkishand with an afterword by
 ARON AJI
 NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS
 
 New York
 THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK
 PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
 www.nyrb.com
 Copyright © 1995, 2007 by Ferit Edgü
 Translation and afterword copyright © 2023 by Aron Aji
 All rights reserved.
 Eastern Tales was first published by Yapı Kredi Yayınları as Doğu Öyküleri in 1995; The Wounded Age was published by Can Yayınları as Yaralı Zaman in 2007.
 
 Excerpts from Anton Chekhov’s The Steppe, translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett, 1888.
 
 Cover image: Abidin Dino, The Long March, 1956
 Cover design: Katy Homans
 
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Edgü, Ferit, 1936– author. | Aji, Aron, 1960– translator, writer of afterword. | Edgü, Ferit, 1936– Yaralı zaman. English. | Edgü, Ferit, 1936– Doğu öyküleri. English.
 Title: The wounded age and Eastern tales / by Ferit Edgü ; translated from the Turkish by Aron Aji; afterword by Aron Aji.
 Other titles: Eastern tales
 Description: New York: New York Review Books, [2022] | Series: New York Review Books classics
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022010796 (print) | LCCN 2022010797 (ebook) | ISBN 9781681376769 (paperback) | ISBN 9781681376776 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCGFT: Prose poems.
 Classification: LCC PL248.E3 W68 2022 (print) | LCC PL248.E3 (ebook) | DDC 894/.3513—dc23/eng/20220526
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010796
 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010797
 ISBN 978-1-68137-677-6
 v1.0
 For a complete list of titles, visit www.nyrb.com
 CONTENTS
 Cover
 Biographical Notes
 Copyright and More Information
 Title Page
 THE WOUNDED AGE
 EASTERN TALES
 Afterword
 THE WOUNDED AGE
 
 
 The wounded body, the wounded land,
 The wounded age—
 —GEORGE SAFARIS, Merés (Days)
 
 FOREWORD
 What’s wrong, the Woman says.
 Nothing, the Man says. Nothing.
 You’re here but it’s like you’re not, she says.
 I’m leaving soon, he says.
 Where, she asks.
 East. The mountains.
 She puts down her fork.
 I expected that.
 The Man is silent.
 The Woman asks, Why?
 The newspaper is sending me.
 They couldn’t find anyone else to send there?
 I asked for the assignment, he says.
 To see it in the flesh again? she asks.
 A bitter smile in her eyes.
 Maybe.
 Missed the mountains, haven’t you?
 Maybe.
 And the people, you must’ve missed them, too.
 The Man is silent.
 People who kill each other.
 The Man is silent.
 And you think you can stop the bloodletting?
 No, he says.
 Why then?
 To go, he says.
 But you already did.
 That was long ago.
 Nothing changes, she says.
 We’ll see.
 You want to see the dead? Are you going there to bury them?
 The Man is silent.
 I am full, she says, leaving the table.
 Turn off the television, he says.
 She turns it off.
 Would you like a drink?
 She gets up without waiting for an answer, prepares a drink.
 Handing him the glass: Is this our last night together?
 Yes.
 Then let’s reminisce, she says, let’s talk.
 You don’t regret looking back.
 They are silent.
 The Woman already lost in memories.
 Remember the town by the lake? she asks.
 The lakeside hotel, he says, years ago.
 Yes, you traveled south, I traveled north.
 True, I traveled south, he says.
 We hiked the mountains around the lake.
 I remember.
 The Woman smiles.
 But those were different mountains.
 I haven’t forgotten.
 Surely not. You worried about an avalanche when I screamed.
 The Man smiles.
 They are silent. Sipping their drinks. Taking a drag or two on their cigarettes.
 They are silent.
 She gets up to refill her glass. Will you describe one last time the night by that lake?
 She leaves the room and returns wearing a silk robe. Kneeling down in front of him, she first removes his shirt. Then his shoes. His socks. His trousers. She burrows her head in his lap. His hands caress her hair. In a barely audible voice, he describes the night they spent in that lakeside town, after a long absence. Just words. No sentences. Then he falls silent. I must be somewhere else, he thinks. Must be dreaming. But who’s this person lying on me? This hair? This deep, dark, tenacious well trying to draw me in? He opens his eyes for a moment: A mountain deer leaping among the ceiling beams. Then a second one, then a