Reason Read: botm June 2022 Reading 1001, Asian Author (Turkey). This is a coming of age story told by Emine Sevgi Özdamar and I think this story probably reflects her own experiences and I also think that it is told in a poetic and crude ways which I suspect might be true to the culture and reflects a woman's world in this middle east setting. The time is the politically turbulent period following WWII. The family has many difficulties and moves frequently; Istanbul to Bursa, then to Ankara and back to Istanbul.

"The author’s wonderful use of local narrative, storytelling, proverbs and prayers, and a prose that moves from the lyrical to gritty humour, re-creates this microcosm of neighbourhoods from a young girl’s intimate perspective."https://elifthereader.com/books/life-is-a-caravanserai-emine-sevgi-ozdamar/.

This book was both hard and easy to read. The lack of breaks between events and stories and no chapters makes it a bit hard but the actual reading moves along without problem. It is a memoir, distorted by the way a youth will see things but also filled with folklore and the way the author puts together sentences almost poetic. Coming of age: The story introduces us to the protagonist while she is a foetus and takes us to her decision to leave her family and go to Germany with the first wave of workers to Germany. The book was written in German.

Book one Ingeborg Backmann Prize. ( )

I thought Emine Sevgi Odamar's "Life is a Caravanserai- Has two doors I came in one, I went out the other" was okay.

The story itself is kind of interesting.... it's a series of stories told by a girl growing up in 1960's Turkey. There were some great little vignettes and there were others that were just kind of strange. The book moves along at a frenetic pace, leaping from story to story. It reminded me of listening to someone I know who has a hardcore drug habit... she talks in the exact same way.

I had real trouble with the language at first.... I think that was due to translation issues not an attempt to keep the novel's voice. I stopped noticing it before I got halfway through, so either I adjusted or it got better as I went along.

Overall, a middling rating from me. I'm not particularly inspired to read anything else by this author. ( )