Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar

'Just as she was being lowered into the earth - following the late afternoon call to prayer - my aunt sprang briskly back to life'In this fictional memoir of Hayri Irdal - troublesome boy, workshy man and feckless husband - life is examined in all its double-crossing, chaotic, disastrous glory. From his youth, dismantling timepieces while his family fell apart, to his later years at the scandal-hit Time Regulation Institute, Hayri's absurdist misadventures play out as a brilliant allegory of the collision between East and West, tradition and modernity.