Dawn

Soysal's writings, full of courage, malice, disobedience and irony, do not so much reflect an existing feminist movement on the streets . . . as forge a new voice, inquiring into the power of capital and men, while keeping in mind the tempestuous and fickle nature of human relationships, with their power to subvert, inflame and destroy . . . Defiant, flawed, piercing. Reading Soysal today restores the volatility and violence of female concerns, and expands our horizons of understanding how inequality operates.
— Helen Mackreath, The White Review

Visceral and cinematic . . . The novel situates the woman’s body in its confrontations with authority. The brilliance of the novel might be traced to the formal structure through which the author reflects on this confrontation . . . Soysal’s writing is captivating, reflective, and thrilling . . . Dawn is a classic that readers interested in feminist world literature will devour.
–Irmak Ertuna Howison, Asymptote

As the sun presses down on Adana, köftes and cups of cloudy raki are passed to the guests of a dinner party in the home of Ali. Among the guests are a journalist named Oya, who has recently been released from prison, and her new acquaintance, Mustafa. Together they sit among calico cushions, debate communism and socialism, words rumbling around the room “like hot peppers.” A swift kick knocks down the front door and bumbling policemen converge on the guests, carting them off to holding cells, where they’ll be interrogated and tortured throughout the night. Fear spools into the private shells of their minds, into the tip of a pen being forced into confession, into claustrophobic thoughts of a return to prison, just after tasting freedom. Bristling snatches of Oya’s time in prison rush back – the wild curses and laughter of inmates, their vicious quarrels and rapturous belly-dancing in the courtyard. Her former inmates created fury and joy out of nothing. Their cloistered yet brimming resilience wills Oya to fight through the night and is fused with every word of this blazing, lucid novel.