Arguably the greatest Turkish novel of the 20th century, Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü has been translated into English
as of January 7.
Writes Istanbul-based Kalem Agency:
The Time Regulation Institute, true to the style of modernity, exposes the dominance of time over modern man’s life and their ever-changing relationships. The ebb and flow of time guides the reader through the novel’s four parts. From Great Expectations to Small Facts, Towards Morning and to Each Season Has Its End we follow Hayri Irdal on his tumultuous journey from East to West, from the Ottoman state to the westernized society of modern Turkey.
Hayri is employed by the Time Regulation Institute, an organization founded for the sole purpose of changing all of Turkey’s clocks to Western time. At the Institute, he becomes involved with a mixture of colorful and fascinating characters: a television mystic, a pharmacist who dabbles in alchemy, a dignitary from the lost Ottoman Empire, and a “clock whisperer”. In a description as mocking as it is accurate, Tanpınar relates the collision of Western modernity and Eastern tradition—a collision whose aftermath the Turkey of today still experiences.
Kalem has sold the rights to many publishers worldwide including Shanghai Literature & Arts Publishing House (上海文艺出版社), which is expected to publish it in 2014 in time for the Beijing Int’l Book Fair at which Turkey will be the Country of Honor. See here for details on all three of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar’s novels due for translation into Chinese.
Bruce Humes 