TURKISH-GREEK "SECRET REVEALED": REFLECTIONS OF POPULATION EXCHANGE IN C. TAN'S NOVEL "HASRET" (LONGING)

Abstract

The most important changes in Turkish literature of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century were, on the one hand, the unprecedented activity of women writers, and, on the other hand, the surprising blurring of the boundaries between high and mass literature and the emergence of a kind of ‘middle-class’ literature. Such novels, parallel to the standard plot development, sometimes raise quite unexpected themes, including references to hitherto unreported pages of theTurkish history, such as the Turkish-Greek population exchange. This article presents the peculiarities of the representation of the Greek-Turkish population exchange in the novel ‘Longing’ by the contemporary woman writer Canan Tan.