Postmodern affective histories in Sevgili Arsız Ölüm (1983) and Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey (2015)

Abstract

This thesis analyzes two postmodern novels that were published in different periods—Sevgili Arsız Ölüm (1983) by Latife Tekin and Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey (2015) by Özge Samancı—in a comparative framework. It investigates how these Turkish women authors employ postmodern novel genre and postmodern narrative strategies such as magic realism, fragmentation, metafiction, and visual storytelling to construct what this study calls postmodern affective histories. Through such writings and the creation of affective histories, the two authors create feminist affects, reclaim women’s subjectivity, and challenge dominant patriarchal and historical discourses. In doing so, as both authors’ narratives are autobiographical, they also reclaim their agency in the world literary scene where they are otherwise underrepresented or marginalized. Drawing on a theoretical framework that combines approaches from world literature theories, postcolonial criticism, feminist theory, and affect theory, this thesis situates both novels within world literary circuits. This thesis work also incorporates Franco Moretti's “distant reading” approach to highlight how these authors—despite their marginal positioning due to gender, language, and geography—actively contribute to the development and evolution of the postmodern novel genre and global feminist discourse. Ultimately, this study argues that through their protagonists, Dirmit and Özge, and the use of localized postmodern techniques and translations, Latife Tekin’s Sevgili Arsız Ölüm and Özge Samancı’s Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey offer alternative historiographies and enrich our understanding of Turkish women’s literature and presence within a global literary context.