Oya Baydar 
The Lost Word 

Acclaimed author Ömer Eren has writer’s block – he has lost his ‘word’. After meeting a distressed young Kurdish couple on the run from the Turkish authorities, Kurdish resistance-movement guerrillas and the woman’s own family, things begin to change, however. Emotionally distanced from his scientist wife and his son, Ömer travels to the couple’s homeland, where, as he becomes involved with an extraordinary woman and begins to comprehend the complexities of the region, he regains his sense of purpose and his creativity as hope returns. A mixture of thriller, love story and political novel, The Lost Word, by the acclaimed Oya Baydar explores the effects of violence, misplaced ambition and loss of integrity with its associated guilt, anxiety and despair. Through Ömer’s journey to the east of Turkey we have a window on the Kurdish predicament from the inside and the devastating oppression and armed conflict that the Kurdish people witness daily. ‘Oya Baydar’s fine novel brings the Turkish conflict to the fore . . . In a compelling, polyphonic structure, the journeys of the protagonists are interspersed . . . That this welcome arrival in English of an important Turkish novelist coincides with a major resurgence in the Kurdish war makes it even more timely.’ – Maya Jaggi, Guardian