Azade Seyhan's Tales of Crossed Destinies: The Modern Turkish Novel in a Comparative Context, second in the MLA series World Literatures Reimagined, offers a much-needed guide to the vast, underexplored territory of modern Turkish literature.

Seyhan situates the Turkish novel in relation to such influences as the poetic and oral traditions of Ottoman-Islamic culture, the early Turkish Republic, and Western Romantic and Enlightenment thought. She demonstrates that the evolution of the Turkish novel is inseparable from that of the Turkish state.

Appendixes provide a chronology, a pronunciation guide to Turkish, and a list of modern Turkish novels in English translation, preparing readers to embark on further exploration.

Azade Seyhan is Fairbank Professor in the Humanities, professor of German, and chair of the comparative literature program at Bryn Mawr College. She is author of Writing outside the Nation....