Summary of the book:  Tuhaf Bir Kadin is the story of Nermin, a young woman who aspires to be an intellectual in a rather oppressive social environment.  The four subsections of the novel, entitled, consecutively, “The Girl”, the “The Father”, “The Mother”, and “The Woman”, narrate the struggle and quasi enlightenment of Nermin through the viewpoints of the main characters involved.  The novel deals, critically and analytically, with the social and political history of the modernizing Turkey, its achievements and crises, through the use of multifarious viewpoints and techniques including documentation, dialogue and interior monologue.

Reasons for this choice:  Tuhaf Bir Kadin achieves one of the highest points in representing through literature the emancipation of women in a secularizing country.  It is linguistically elaborate, structurally complex, emotionally deep and psychologically profound.  It deals courageously with taboos and restrictions, but does not resort to eulogizing the intellectual or the artist as a supreme category.  With a significant number of novels and short stories to her credit, Leylâ Erbil is a consummate literary artist.  Tuhaf Bir Kadin represents her exceptional linguistic skill, bold literary experimentation, and relentless search for truth.

Right holders: the publisher