Imagining Climate Futures in Contemporary Turkish Literature: A Critical Approach to Buket Uzuner's Hava
Makaleler > Tam Makale · 2025
Yazarlar: Nesrin YAVAŞ
Uluslararası Türkçe Edebiyat Kültür Eğitim (TEKE) Dergisi, Diğer Kurumların Hakemli Dergileri, Uluslararası, TR Dizin (Ulakbim), 2025, cilt 14, ss 952-964
DOI: 10.7884/teke.1644383
Özet
<p>This study examines the representation of climate change in Turkish literature, focusing on Buket Uzuner’s <em>Hava</em> (2018). Climate change, unfolding across vast temporal and spatial scales, poses challenges for literary depiction. While <em>Hava</em> integrates Turkish shamanistic traditions to revive ecological consciousness, its focus on localized environmental disruptions rather than systemic global processes limits its scope. Unlike speculative climate fiction, which employs non-linear storytelling, <em>Hava</em> follows a conventional narrative centered on immediate human experiences, restricting its ability to depict climate change’s slow violence and structural transformations. The novel's focus on localized anomalies fails to connect them to broader transnational climate crises. Furthermore, it does not fully engage with climate change’s temporal complexities, global interconnections, and its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities. This study argues that Turkish climate fiction should expand its scope by incorporating speculative elements, non-human agency, and innovative storytelling to capture climate change’s planetary scale. A shift toward experimental narrative strategies is crucial for fostering a more effective climate discourse in Turkish</p>