Overview
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD LONGLIST * NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER , TIME , PUBLISHERS WEEKLY , AND ELECTRIC LITERATURE * A DAKOTA JOHNSON x TEATIME BOOK CLUB PICK * VULTURE #1 BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE SELECTION " The Anthropologists is mesmerizing; I felt I read it in a single breath. " -Garth Greenwell " Savas is an author who simply, and astoundingly, knows. " -Bryan Washington Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should their life here look like? What rituals will structure their days? Whom can they consider family? As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, gathers footage from the neighborhood like an anthropologist observing local customs. "Forget about daily life," chides her grandmother on the phone. "We named you for a whole continent and you're filming a park." Back in their home countries parents age, grandparents get sick, nieces and nephews grow up-all just slightly out of reach. But Asya and Manu's new world is growing, too, they hope. As they open the horizons of their lives, what and whom will they hold onto, and what will they need to release? Unfolding over a series of apartment viewings, late-night conversations, last rounds of drinks and lazy breakfasts, The Anthropologists is a soulful examination of homebuilding and modern love, written with Aysegül Savas' distinctive elegance, warmth, and humor.
Professional Reviews
" The Anthropologists is yet another gorgeous, gorgeous book from Aysegül Savas: she is an author who simply, and astoundingly, knows. Savas knows hope. Savas knows despair. Savas knows joy, and malaise, and laughter, and curiosity. There are worlds inside of Savas'' prose, and The Anthropologists is both a bright light and a map for how to be. A massively heartening achievement."
-- Bryan Washington, author of LOT, MEMORIAL, and FAMILY MEAL
"[Savas] writes with both sensuality and coolness as if determined to find a rational explanation for the irrationality of existence."
-- Sarah Lyall, The New York Times on WALKING ON THE CEILING
"Savas'' restrained style is a statement in itself, minimalist on the surface but more textured than what first meets the eye."
-- Michele Filgate, Los Angeles Times on WHITE ON WHITE
"Savas''s writing is unadorned and yet perfectly attuned to the poetry and strangeness of everyday life."
-- Sanaë Lemoine, Electric Literature on WHITE ON WHITE
"Bright, perspicacious, and elegant . . . White on White stands as both a well-defined and well-executed work in its own right and a prime example of the evolutionary process of the novel as an art form."
-- Chicago Review of Books on WHITE ON WHITE
"A haunting, irresistible novel. I loved this book for its depth and perception, for its beauty and eerie rhythms, but most of all for its wonderfully dream-like spell. It''s breathtaking."
-- Brandon Taylor on WHITE ON WHITE
"The entire world of White on White is selectively outlined. What of it exists exists in crisp, clean prose . . . the narrator . . . resists providing the compassion and reassurance Agnes seems to so desperately seek. The results of this thwarted intimacy move the story inexorably toward a finale that, for a book so invested in visual art, feels surprisingly most like an act of literary revenge."
-- Larissa Pham, New York Times Book Review on WHITE ON WHITE
"''In the middle ages, human skin was seen as a blanket stretched to cover a secret, inner life,'' writes Aysegül Savas. Reading White on White for me is like an outer skin which you open layer by layer as you read; gentle, mysterious and profound."
-- Marina Abramovic on WHITE ON WHITE
"Aysegül Savas'' White on White is marvelous, as elegant as an opaque sheet of ice that belies the swift and turbulent waters beneath."
-- Lauren Groff on WHITE ON WHITE
"A superb novel by an exceptionally elegant, intelligent, and original writer."
-- Sigrid Nunez on WHITE ON WHITE
"I was riveted by it. The delicate restraint of the language just adds to its power."
-- Celia Paul on WHITE ON WHITE
"The story at the heart of Aysegül Savas''s White on White is-like the title- subtly camouflaged. Savas''s characters watch each other as they avoid themselves, in a slow, acute and obliterating double portrait."
-- Leanne Shapton on WHITE ON WHITE
"I read it in a day and slid into its world with total delight and admiration. It''s a deeply humane, quietly devastating, mesmerisingly beautiful masterpiece."
-- Olivia Sudjic on WHITE ON WHITE
"Savas'' luxuriantly meditative new novel, White on White , again zeroes in on these elemental interpersonal themes . . . The narrator''s research into the historic ties between touch and narrative is almost unwittingly fueled by Agnes'' compulsion to bare herself metaphorically . . . Savas'' lyrically spare gem shimmer[s] with richly complex insights on communication, family, love and friendship."
-- Cory Oldweiler, Minneapolis Star Tribune on WHITE ON WHITE
"Savas elegantly explores loneliness in her second novel."
-- Bethanne Patrick, Washington Post on WHITE ON WHITE
"A true portrait of artists young and old, White is narrated by a graduate student who rents an apartment from an older professor but is surprised to learn that his wife, a painter, will be joining her for much of her time abroad. Intrigue mixed with delight turns into something closer to horror as the painter''s life-along with her marital drama and occasional madness-begins to overcome them both."
-- Entertainment Weekly on WHITE ON WHITE
"An elegantly stark character study . . . a haunting cautionary tale."
-- Christian Science Monitor on WHITE ON WHITE
"By the end of White on White , Savas''s message is clear: it is impossible to fully understand another person. . . White on White goes deep into human experience, beautiful and fraught, delivering a renewed perception of what it means to be a person among other people."
-- Ploughshares on WHITE ON WHITE
"Despite the thriller-ish underpinning of the novel and the propulsive unfolding of the relationship at the book''s heart, Savas'' graceful and intellectual prose is the star of the show here. It makes air-light what might otherwise be a novel ponderous with weighty questions: What is the nature of art? Does it reveal or conceal? What is the nature of human connection? . . . . Like a prism, this novel brilliantly illuminates the human spectrum of connection and longing."
-- Kirkus, starred review on WHITE ON WHITE
