Additional information
by Yusuf Atilgan (Author), Fred Stark (Translator)
"Motherland Hotel is a startling masterpiece, a perfect existential nightmare, the portrait of a soul lost on the threshold of an ever-postponed Eden."--Alberto Manguel, author of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: A Biography
Zeberjet, the last surviving member of a once prosperous Ottoman family, is the owner of the Motherland Hotel, a run-down establishment near the railroad station. A lonely, middle-aged introvert, his simple life is structured by daily administrative tasks and regular, routine sex with the hotel's maid. One day, a beautiful woman from the capital comes to spend the night, promising to return "next week," and suddenly Zeberjet's insular, mechanical existence is dramatically and irrevocably changed. The mysterious woman's presence has tantalized him, and he begins to live his days in fevered anticipation of her return. But the week passes, and then another, and as his fantasies become more and more obsessive, Zeberjet gradually loses his grip on reality.
Motherland Hotel was hailed as the novel of the year when it was published in 1973, astonishing critics with its experimental style, its intense psychological depth and its audacious description of sexual obsession. Zeberjet was compared to such memorable characters as Quentin Compson in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and Meursault in Albert Camus' The Stranger. While author Yusuf Atilgan had already achieved considerable literary fame, Motherland Hotel cemented his reputation as one of Turkey's premier modernists.
Author Biography
Yusuf Atilgan (27 June 1921, Manisa - 9 October 1989, Istanbul) was a Turkish novelist and dramatist, best known for his novels Aylak Adam (The Flâneur) and Anayurt Oteli (Motherland Hotel). A pioneer of the modern Turkish novel, Atilgan's work, in dealing with the existential crises of human beings, probes the depths of human psychology. After graduating from Istanbul University's Turkish Language and Literature Department, he moved back to the town of Manisa, where he took up writing. His novelAylak Adam was published in 1959, followed in 1973 by Anayurt Oteli, which gained further fame when a film based on the novel was made in 1986. In 1976, he began working in Istanbul as an editor and translator. With his wife Serpil he had a son in 1979 named Mehmet. Atilgan died of a heart attack in 1989 while in the middle of writing a novel titled Canistan, later published in incomplete form. Atilgan is also the author of popular children's book and a collection of short stories.
Fred Stark is the translator of Bilge Karasu's A Long Day's Evening (City Lights, 2012), which was shortlisted for the 2013 PEN Translation Prize.
