Cemile Sahin: All Dogs Die

Publication Year: 2024
Pages: 226 pages
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: MTO Press
ISBN: 978-1-916913-04-2
Dimensions: 12,9 × 19,8 cm
Language: English

How do you live with violence and dread? How do you cope with the threat of them recurring? These are among the urgent questions posed by Cemile Sahin's second novel, and the first to be translated into English, ALL DOGS DIE—a haunting and brilliant tale of people on the edge.

ALL DOGS DIE is narrated in nine episodes by different characters who all live exiled in the same high rise building in Western Turkey. Each character lives with the memory and fear of the violence and torture inflicted upon them by the Turkish secret police and army. While they report on their lives, the systematic terror of the Turkish military remains inescapable and persistently enthrals them, one way or another.

ALL DOGS DIE chronicles a country characterised by militarism and nationalism and stands as an unflinching representation of geopolitical realities and of the enduring suffering of the Kurdish people wrought by Turkish state-sponsored terror that extends far beyond any one time and place.

Each episode tells of a harrowing past and an indeterminate present and Ayça Türkoğlu's vivid and superb translation serves to bear witness to the heartbreaking and desperate narratives of each character, as they try to put into words their ineffably brutal struggle. Many of their fates are inextricably linked and we follow their testimonies with bated breath as they unravel in almost thriller-like fashion until the story's shocking, yet inevitable, conclusion.