To live many different lives: In conversation with Ayşegül Savaş

My notes, in preparation for the writing of this introduction, formed a web of densely concentrated insight on the human experience courtesy of Ayşegül’s latest novel, The Anthropologists. The book follows its main character, Asya — a documentary filmmaker — through the kind of rich chronicling of her everyday life that is often offered within the context of anthropological writings. The small, in this way, is made large, expanding to fill the container of major narrative events in ways that would typically be reserved for moments of high drama.

“Daily life,” Asya says at one point in the novel, “was a difficult story to tell.” Her grandmother responds by urging her to “forget about daily life,” because, in her view, “no one cares about that.” Yet, as the widely regarded success of this novel makes clear, there are, in fact, a great many people who care about that. If in your reading you enjoy attention to detail, incisively rendered commentary, and vivid jolts of emotion, you’ll enjoy not only this interview but also its author’s work in general, which you can find everywhere from The Paris Review to The New Yorker to the shelves of your favourite bookstore.

Link to interview: womenofletters.substack.com/p/aysegul-savas

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Ayşegül Savaş is the author of the novels Walking on the Ceiling, White on White, and The Anthropologists. Her first non-fiction book The Wilderness is forthcoming in October. Originally from Turkey, she lives in Paris.

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Song: “Walk Through the Park,” by TrackTribe