The glorious return of the supernatural to the novel: an analysis of the new conception of reality in the stories of Efrasiyab and the Red-Haired Woman

Abstract

Realism lingered quite long in Turkish literature. From the 1900s onwards, realism and naturalism were prominent movements. If the often-despised detective novels are put aside, there was hardly any room for the extraordinary in fiction. During the socialist realism era, realism almost became the sole movement and was strong until the 1950s. Despite the appearance of the first modern literature from that time on, it kept its prominent position until the 1970s. What realism skillfully pushed outside the literature were the supernatural, the magic, the extraordinary, the mythical, and the fairy-tale-inspired narration. However, these elements made a comeback in the 1980s and quickly spread in the 2000s. Today, almost all fiction comprises these elements, and this time not in the form of the despised "B-literature," but in a very mainstream way. Today, the fantastic, detective novels, historical/biographical fiction and science fiction of all sorts are living their golden age. Often fused with myths, fairy-tales, epics, and such, this new type of fiction is like a scene where the supernatural has made its glorious comeback. In this paper, I will show the different ways and forms of this comeback in two novels: The Stories of Efrasiyab by İhsan Oktay Anar and The Red Haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk. Analyzing these novels based on their approach to the supernatural, I will try to show how myths and reality mix, what type of novel universe they create, and what this new reality stands for in the postmodern times we live in.