The Esir Şehir Duology: Kemal Tahir’s Thought-Provoking Texts

Abstract

Kemal Tahir’s novels Esir Şehrin İnsanları [The People of the Captive City] and Esir Şehrin Mahpusu [The Prisoner of the Captive City], known collectively as the Esir Şehir [Captive City] duology, present a narrative universe that explores layered, complex, and multidimensional discussions on history, society, and human nature through the historical period they depict. However, when subjecting the Captive City series to a comparative reading with canonical works of the period, the differences that emerge are more pronounced than the similarities. In terms of the historical period being depicted, specifically its portrayal of the human and social panorama of Istanbul during the Armistice of Mudros, the novels can be classified within the tradition of Turkish National Movement novels. Although the duology shares points of proximity and connection with other narratives of the era, Kemal Tahir’s texts stand out through their distinct, striking differences from other novels of the period. This study emphasizes Kemal Tahir’s duology to occupy an original divergent position marked by a sharp break from the narrative tradition of the era, largely due to its focus on the spatial integrity of the prison setting and the experience of imprisonment. These intellectual and artistic points of distinction are observed to transform the two novels into texts that reflect on such concepts as captivity, confinement, freedom, historical reality, and human nature.