In her introduction to this collection, the critic Merve Emre writes: “The characters in Waiting for the Fear do not know what or who they are; their self-estrangement is the source of their drama.” It’s a succinct summation of Oğuz Atay’s short fiction, originally published in Turkish as Korkuyu Beklerken in 1975 and now translated into English by Ralph Hubbell in 2024.  One of the most prominent writers of 20th-century Turkey, Atay (1934-1977) was known for his experimentation and linguistic dexterity. His first novel, a 700-page staggering behemoth titled Tutunamayanlar (1971-72)—The Disconnected in English—is a good example. It follows an engineer named Turgut Özbenin in his attempt to uncover the last years of his long-lost friend Selim Işik after his suicide. Atay followed that with Tehlikeli Oyunlar aka Dangerous Games (1973), which revolves around a disillusioned Turkish intellectual no longer enchanted by the idea of becoming a novelist. Waiting for…

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