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"I am here. Where are you?" These desperate words link the two protagonists of Hakan Günday's raw and fearless novel The Few. Derda is an eleven-year-old girl pulled out of boarding school by her mother who, without telling her, plans to sell her as a wife to a conservative tribesman. She goes with her new husband to London, where for five years he abuses and all but imprisons her. Even after escaping, Derda soon finds herself preyed upon by Londoners as well as other Turkish immigrants who have formed a criminal underworld.
In a parallel story set in Turkey, Derda, an eleven-year-old boy, buries his dead mother in secret to avoid being taken to the state orphanage. Alone, he becomes with an illegal book printing operation. He finds himself obsessed with a Turkish novelist, who Derda grows convinced died because he felt misunderstood and unappreciated. Increasingly unstable, Derda targets two contemporary writers, whom he accuses of stealing the writer's fame.
The Few is an unflinching story of the vulnerability of the world's youth when cultures, politics, and generations collide. In a time when countless refugees and children slip through the cracks, it is a powerful admonishment not to forget those who are helpless victims.
In a parallel story set in Turkey, Derda, an eleven-year-old boy, buries his dead mother in secret to avoid being taken to the state orphanage. Alone, he becomes with an illegal book printing operation. He finds himself obsessed with a Turkish novelist, who Derda grows convinced died because he felt misunderstood and unappreciated. Increasingly unstable, Derda targets two contemporary writers, whom he accuses of stealing the writer's fame.
The Few is an unflinching story of the vulnerability of the world's youth when cultures, politics, and generations collide. In a time when countless refugees and children slip through the cracks, it is a powerful admonishment not to forget those who are helpless victims.
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Reviews
"In unadorned prose, Gunday weaves together the two protagonists' grim struggles to indict the ways class, gender, and circumstance define so many lives in contemporary society. This timely and powerful novel also offers a sliver of hope that this world can be redeemed."
Booklist
"The importance of this novel . . . lies in its horrific portrayals of refugees fleeing desperate situations. . . [A] complex, Dostoyevsky-like inquiry into man's capacity for evil."
Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"Imagine a nine-year-old child assisting his father with the family business-the ruthless smuggling of humans. Imagine this child's apprenticeship in profit and survival and unspeakable cruelties that numb him to what it means to be human. Imagine this child's graduation from bystander to killer. Hakan Günday will take you there in his unflinching and momentous novel More."
Ursula Hegi, New York Times bestselling author of Stones from the River