The narrator of Cold Nights of Childhood grows up in a rapidly changing Turkey where the
atmosphere is nationalist patriarchal technocratic. As a misfit in search of freedom love
and happiness she escapes to Berlin is overcome by depression on her return and trapped in a
psychiatry clinic for five years. After electroshock therapy and inhumane treatment she is
released into the care of friends and family making tentative steps in a halting journey
towards recovery. In her unique unstructured style Tezer Özlü explores the extremity of her
inner life and the painful pleasures of memory. Translated into English for the first time by
Maureen Freely this novel is a classic akin to The Bell Jar and Good Morning Midnight.