GÜlten DayioĞlu’s Alternative History Fantasy Novel

Abstract

The paper observes the artistic features of the fantasy novel Twilight Birds (Alacakaranlık Kuşları, 2005) by the famous contemporary Turkish writer Gülten Dayioğlu. The study aims to prove that the novel, in terms of its artistic and aesthetic attributes, belongs to a subgenre of science fiction, alternative history, which is new to Turkish literature. The following objectives were pursued: to characterise Turkish fiction literature in 1990–2000 (classification of genres, genre features, representatives of each genre), to outline the main stages in the study of Turkish fiction by national researchers from the mid-20s to the early 21st century, to cover the writer’s biography of G. Dayıoğlu, the content of the novel Twilight Birds, the plot motifs, the main themes and the imagery. The paper argues that the plot element of the novel is the legends, which eventually gain fantasy qualities and become a form of an alternative historical development for the human civilisation. The provided examples demonstrate that the compositional structure of the novel, including the system of images, depicts an alternative form of existence — a highly developed bird civilisation on a mysterious planet. This civilisation is portrayed as the ideal society to which all earthlings should aspire. In conclusion, the fiction in the novel is inextricably linked to scientific and technological advances as evidenced by the numerous references to scientific works in the text. Moreover, G. Dayioğlu’s fiction approaches vital sociopolitical issues and forms an authentic aesthetics that takes her work beyond mass literature.