Review of I Am My Country by Kenan Orhan

*I Am My Country* by Kenan Orhan (2023). Published by Random House.

One of my favorite hobbies when it comes to reading is simply wandering my local library branch and seeing what it has to offer on the shelves.

Whether it’s the fiction section or nonfiction, I have a tendency to just spend a long time in there and marinate in what kind of books I have never heard of living on the shelves.

Although recently they changed up their layout, leaving me wandering around with my neck craned in search of what was once familiar when it came to where the sections were, this is something that brings me such joy. It’s also I find authors I’d never heard.

This was how I stumbled upon I Am My Country. I had never heard of Kenan Orhan as an author before, so when I found this title I thought that it seemed interesting.

Then I saw their name and realizes that I thought it was Turkish, flipped open the book cover, and realized they’re of Turkish descent.

I try to support SWANA authors whenever I can, especially if they’re from the diaspora, so I decided to check this collection of short stories out.

That said, here is my review!

A collection of short stories based on the Turkish experience.

As mentioned above, this is a collection of short stories. Some are indeed set in Turkey, so if you’re not familiar with Turkish culture and what entails with living in Turkey politically and socially, get ready to learn.

Short story collections like this can be such a great primer for understanding the culture through literature. But if you zoned in on the politically part of my statement before, get yourself ready for what’s to come.

A lot of what these short stories focus on are the impacts of President Erdogan’s policies on Turkish people. I think that if you don’t know anything about Turkish politics and what they have been like in the past few decades, don’t fret about the finer details.

You’ll get the gist of what the stories are trying to say and their points from the details alone. I knew a little bit about contemporary Turkish issues going into this, but I thought that my knowledge was superficial afterwards—there’s something completely different about reading stories like these in context.

I think it would be a disservice to describe all of the stories under this umbrella, or under a single identity of just “Turkish” though. Turkey is a very diverse country with a broad range of experiences, and I found this to be an interesting book to explore that fact through.

There are many different kinds of protagonists depicted in I Am My Country, and while all of them can fall under that umbrella having been impacted by politics (as politics tend to do), there is so much more to their stories and experiences.

My personal favorite stories in this collection were “The Birdkeeper’s Moral,” which takes place in 1955 and can be incorporating elements of fantasy under the overarching love the main character had for his childhood love, and “The Story of Ankara,” which can lean quite sad the further you get into the plot and realize what’s to come.

All in all, though I thought the writing in these stories was very well done.

Overall Thoughts

Pick up a copy of this collection if you’re interested! I thought that each of the stories found within the collection can hold their own weight, and that if any of them were extended into full-length novels (which I could see happening), I would read any of them.

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection and what it had to offer, and I will be on the lookout for more of the author’s work in the future.

It also makes me want to read more Turkish and its diaspora literature, as there’s such fascinating history involved when it comes to Turkey. And their literary history, too, is immense.

Follow me below on Instagram and Goodreads for more.