B O O K S

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1990. 288 pages.
0896722287
978-0-89672-228-6

Art of the Turkish Tale: Volume 1

By Barbara K. Walker
Illustrated by Helen Siegl
Foreword by Talat Sait Halman

In casting them into English, Walker has paid particular attention to capturing the flavor and excitement of the Turkish telling, while not infringing "on the narrator's right to have the tale recreated as he had told it."

…The beauty, power, and appeal of the present volume for the general reading public, however, depends largely upon Barbara Walker's own consummate skill as a teller and re-teller of tales and her commitment to conveying as much of the Turkish performance context as possible.

…In a gesture which is perhaps symptomatic of the reasons for this volume's success, [Barbara Walker] recognizes in the Acknowledgments section each and every tale-teller by name--all forty of them, ranging in age from nine to ninety and coming from the many different walks of life, both urban and rural, to be found in twenty out of Turkey's seventy-four provinces from Muğla to Kars and from İstanbul to Diyarbakır. In presenting the works of "all these generous bearers of tradition" to an English-speaking audience, [she] has achieved her aim of opening a small window on the art of the Turkish tale in a volume which stands as a tribute to the art of book making as well.

Sarah Moment Atiş,
Chair, Middle East Studies Program,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
President, Turkish Studies Association

This will stand as a fine, quintessential contribution…. One hears the whispers of the original voices in these versions, all of which are… artful, recast in colloquial rhythms, and couched in a style that conveys the substance, the shape, the spirit, and the sumptuousness or the simplicity of the tale.

Talat Sait Halman,
Turkey's former Minister of Culture,
then Ambassador for Cultural Affairs;
now Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, New York University