Book Description

Istanbul, 1915. While the Ottoman Empire is in the thick of war and fighting for its life, an unnamed fifteen-year-old boy has his own pressing concerns: he suffers from severe bone tuberculosis and drifts from doctor to doctor, unwilling to follow their advice. As his incurable condition and resulting despair trap him in fevered, psychological seclusion, he seeks solace in his infatuation with an older girl, Nüzhet.

Surgical Ward 9 is a raw and honest account of a sick person’s inner world – his envy, longing, ambition, disappointment, terror, hope, and despair. This melancholic yet strangely vibrant book bears traces of Peyami Safa’s own childhood, and its power still endures today.

Peyami Safa was a novelist, journalist and critic. One of Turkey’s most prolific writers, Safa authored a dozen novels, as well as seventeen essay collections on the most pressing political, philosophical and linguistic subjects of his time. Despite never having attended school past the age of thirteen, Safa also wrote a number of textbooks for formal education and became a vocal participant in the New Republic’s cultural and linguistic debates of the 1930’s. His fiction, noted for its distinctive voice and psychological depth, has secured his place as a cornerstone of modern Turkish literature. Across generations, Safa’s intricately woven novels continue to offer both profound literary pleasure and a resonant sense of discovery to new readers.