Turkish

Especially timely in light of debates about Turkey's entrance into the European Union, this lexical tour de force and sui generis book in the tradition of Sterne and Borges uses the dictionary genre to inject polemic into certain forbidden discourses involving Turkish language, politics, sexuality, and history. It also introduces the Turkish universe in all its intimacy from the perspective of a personal "Wirkungsgeschichte," The "definitions" are presented with a sense of wit and political incorrectness that one does not usually associate with sacred Ottoman subjects such as the "hammam" and revered political icons such as Ataturk. Presented as a found manuscript, the book is edited by Roger Conover, the well-known Editor at MIT Press.