ONE OF BARACK OBAMA' S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2024 ‘An erudite and elegant meditation on
modern life and modern love... Asya and Manu could very well be a couple in a novel by Sally
Rooney or Caleb Azumah Nelson.' GUARDIAN ' Immaculately observed... I found myself
not wanting The Anthropologists to end.' FINANCIAL TIMES ‘Savaş’ prose is an X-ray – an
acute portrait of the tender frequencies that make a life.’ RAVEN LEILANI
__________________________________________________________________________________ Asya and
Manu are looking at apartments envisioning their future in a foreign city. Removed from the
web of family and its obligations what traditions and rituals should they establish together?
As they dream about the possibilities of each new listing Asya a documentary filmmaker
spends her days gathering footage from the neighbourhood park like an anthropologist observing
local customs anxious to know how people really live. ‘Forget about daily life ’ chides her
grandmother on the phone ‘no one cares about that.’ Meanwhile life back in Asya and
Manu' s respective home countries continues – parents age grandparents get sick nieces and
nephews grow up – all just slightly beyond their reach. But the world they' re making in
their new city is growing too they hope. As they open up 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 home-building and modern love written with Aysegül
Savaş’ distinctive elegance warmth and humour.
__________________________________________________________________________________ Praise for
THE ANTHROPOLOGISTS ‘ The Anthropologists is about love youth and that most profound and
elusive of subjects – happiness. Full of delicacy wisdom and wit this is another gorgeous
work from one of my favourite writers.’ KATIE KITAMURA ‘Like Walter Benjamin Ayşegül
Savaş uncovers trapdoors to bewilderment everywhere in everyday life like Henry James she
sees marriage as a mystery unsoundably deep. The Anthropologists is mesmerising I felt I
read it in a single breath.’ GARTH GREENWELL ‘Yet another gorgeous gorgeous book from
Aysegül Savaş: she is an author who simply and astoundingly knows. Savaş knows hope. Savaş
knows despair. Savaş knows joy and malaise and laughter and curiosity. There are worlds
inside of Savaş' prose and The Anthropologists is both a bright light and a map for how to
be. A massively heartening achievement.’ BRYAN WASHINGTON
