From the Land of Light

• In her book titled 'Işık Ülkesinden', though she does not explicitly state it, she recounts her family story starting from her great-grandfather with the Balkan migration. In a way, it is a tale of belonging and un-belonging. The language is fluid, reminiscent of Ayla Kutlu's style, and it could be compelling for biography lovers.

• Göğüş presents to readers, with cinematic flair, the saga of a family migrating from Macedonia to Turkey, their uprooting, and their transformation. Leaving their home behind just as it was in the dead of night, reaching the 'new homeland' after a perilous train journey, the family endures here, sustained by the strength they draw from olive trees.

• If you wonder about what Turkey's and our people's past really was and wasn't, and if you want to see how we, as a society, failed or were unable to learn lessons from lived experiences, alongside our sheer indifference, Işık Ülkesinden is the book you must read. This book can also be regarded as an important sociological study covering the vulnerabilities of 'nomadic societies.' In short, I am glad to have spoken, even if belatedly, of a major work that genuinely deserved its prize. Bless your pen, Zeynep Göğüş!

• It is a remarkably rich book in terms of reflecting the era it depicts. Migration is both the oldest and newest subject in the world, and the dramas and stories it brings never grow old. The writing style of the book is so fluid and gripping that all the transformations in the newly founded Republic of Turkey take place at lightning speed, and you clearly see how the people struggling to keep up with them feel.

• A book that never loses its rhythm thanks to the subtle knowledge woven into the fiction, its intense tempo, and its expansive cast of characters. In this regard, however heavy its subject matter might be, it is equally fluid to read. Usually the fiction writing of journalists—you might find this presumptuous, but in my view—tends to be weak at first and strengthens over time, but I didn't get that impression from Göğüş at all, which was fantastic for me. For anyone who says they want to read an immigrant family's story reaching from the Ottoman era to modern Turkey, go ahead. I recommend it.

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