Description
A riotous satirical comedy about an eccentric group of Turks who form a society to ensure that all clocks are set to Western time, Tanpinar’s neglected masterpiece is finally available in English. Westernisation has proved a rich seam of narrative in Turkish fiction and The Time Regulation Institute handles the sensitive topic with a heroic absurdity.
One of the greatest and most overlooked novels of the twentieth century, by an author championed by Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, The Time Regulation Institute appears here in English for the first time-more than fifty years after its original publication in Turkish.
This is the story of the misadventures of Hayri Irdals, an unforgettable antihero who, along with an eccentric cast of characters (a television mystic, a pharmacist who dabbles in alchemy, a dignitary from the lost Ottoman empire, the "life-artist" Halit), founds The Time Regulation Institute. The institute's quixotic quest: to make sure all the clocks in Turkey are set to Western time. Thus begins a brilliant satire about the calamitous arrival of Western and corporate values in tradition-bound Turkey.
An uproarious tragicomedy that is still startlingly relevant, The Time Regulation Institute illuminates the collision of East and West, tradition and modernity, that has been playing out in Turkey since the early twentieth century.
Number of pages: 432
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 24 mm
