A mesmerizing novel set in Paris and a changing Istanbul, about a young Turkish woman grappling with her past - her country's and her own - and her complicated relationship with the famous British writer who longs for her memories.
Ayseg l Savas grew up in Turkey and Denmark. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, Guernica, and elsewhere, and was shortlisted for the Glimmer Train Fiction Prize and the Graywolf Emerging Writers Award. She has an MFA from the University of San Francisco. She teaches at the Sorbonne and lives in Paris.
“[A] delicate, melancholy debut novel... The unreliability of
memory; the ways we talk to ourselves and to each other; how we can
act as detectives in our own lives, combing the past for clues; how
places can seem clearer from afar than when we are there — all
these themes are touched on in Savas’s spare, disarmingly simple
prose. She writes with both sensuality and coolness, as if
determined to find a rational explanation for the irrationality of
existence, and for the narrator’s opaque understanding of
herself.”
—Sarah Lyall, The New York Times
"[A] beguiling little novel... going out for a stroll is the
activity that most resembles the reading of Savaş’s book—the way
people and places are observed in passing, captured in short
discreet word photographs that form a sweet, sad meditative
ramble.”
—The New York Times Book Review
"[A]n original, mesmerising story.... [A] beguiling tale of
two cities which expertly illuminates 'the devious ways of
memory.'"
—The Economist
“[T]he kind of novel that stuns you in a way both quiet and
surprising, launching you into reveries of your own.”
—Nylon Magazine
“Ayşegül Savaş is an enormous new talent who writes with the rigor
of Didion and the tenderness of Sebald. Walking on the Ceiling
holds the immediacy of youth and the depth of long-earned wisdom at
once. Its elegant voice is sure to summon old memories and longings
from each reader, relighting them anew.”
—Catherine Lacey, author of The Answers
“In Walking on the Ceiling, Aysegul Savas investigates the
inability of any story to accurately evoke lived experience—yet her
unconventional narrative succeeds in doing just that. Savas’s
celebration of the minutest details of Paris and Istanbul is
juxtaposed, to devastating effect, against rising political
tensions. This quietly intense debut is the product of a wise and
probing mind.”
—Helen Phillips, author of The Need and The Beautiful
Bureaucrat
“Walking on the Ceiling is an elegant meditation on grief,
identity, memory and homecoming. Moving between Paris and Istanbul,
the novel captures the tangle of narrative around history, both
personal and collective. I fell in love with this book.”
—Katie Kitamura, author of A Separation
“Sensual, fragile, scented with hope and loss, Walking on the
Ceiling is a powerful debut and Ayşegül Savaş is an extremely
talented rising star.” —Dorthe Nors, author of Mirror,
Shoulder, Signal
“Nunu calls this reminiscence of M. an ‘inventory,’ and that's
exactly what Savaş has produced here, rendering with elegant
intelligence the minute details of both places and people. That the
novel moves in circles, acknowledging that some places can be
glimpsed but never really explored, makes it all the more like a
long walk through a city one can never quite call one's own. A
refined and wistful exploration of the nature of memory.” —Kirkus,
STARRED review
“The dislocations of place, identity, time, and truth eddy through
Savaş’s elegant debut. . . . Interweaving past and present, Paris
and Istanbul, evasion and epiphany in spare yet evocative prose,
Savaş’s moving coming-of-age novel offers a rich exploration of
intimacy, loneliness, and the endless fluidity of historical,
cultural, and personal narrative.” —Publishers Weekly
“Savaş' quiet and emotionally rich novel is a tender portrait of a
young woman exploring her identity and coming to terms with her
personal history. … Like Elizabeth Strout’s My Name is Lucy
Barton, this novel is deceptively simple and subtly profound and
will appeal to those fond of character studies and lovely
writing.” —Booklist
“Quiet, intense, and moving.” —LitHub
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