Loren Edizel

Loren Edizel was born in Izmir, Turkey and has lived in Canada most of her life.  She currently lives in Toronto.

Fiction

Adrift: A Novel

Toronto: TSAR Publications, 2011.
PS8609 .D59 A69 2011

Publisher’s Synopsis

John arrives at the Montreal airport with an old suitcase in hand.  He takes up work as a night-shift nurse and obsessively writes his reflections and impressions in a notebook that he carries with him at all times.  By following his daily movements and intimate thoughts, and the connections he makes at work and on the street, we come to realize who this friendly immigrant really is.  Set in the Montreal neighbourhood of Carré St-Louis, the story unfolds through narrative connections that flow across city blocks, continents, and oceans, and meander in and out of the characters’ minds, revealing to us that even the loneliest and desperate of lives is rich, and connected in the most startling of ways.  This novel is a brilliant evocation of the modern condition.

 

Fiction (Short stories)

Confessions: A Book of Tales

Toronto: Inanna Publications, 2014.
PS8609 .D59 C65 2014

Publisher’s Synopsis (from its website)

Why do we keep secrets and why do we confess them? The nine tales in this collection, all told in the first person, are each spun around a well-kept secret, willingly or inadvertently confessed. Sometimes the secrets are at the core of the narrator’s life, other times they appear tangential. Regardless of the magnitude of its burden, the confession finds its way to the reader, through a story told perhaps over a cup of tea, in the pages of a journal or within the intimacy of the narrator’s mind. Would stories mean as much to us if they did not remind us of our own secrets and regrets, our stolen moments, our ecstatic failures and sad joys?

Fiction

Days of Moonlight: A Novel

Toronto: Inanna Publications, 2018.
PS8609 .D59 D39 2018

Publisher’s Synopsis (from its website)

Upon receiving a letter and a package of journals from a dying Mehtap, her mother Nuray’s close friend in Turkey, a young Toronto woman immerses herself in the old woman’s memories. She uncovers Mehtap’s story as a factory worker in the 1960s who is infatuated with her boss, a man she willingly lies for, and even wrap presents for that he gives to his mistress and his wife. When her friend, Nuray, moves in with her, something unexpected happens and Mehtap is forced to choose between her two loves. Mehtap’s story is interwoven with that of her parents, Cretan refugees who landed in Izmir in the mid-twenties as a result of the disastrous population exchange, only to discover an inescapable and tragic truth that shatters their lives. As Mehtap’s writings unfurl, Nuray’s daughter — Mehtap’s namesake — now the keeper of the journals, notebooks and letters written by her mother’s friend, also uncovers her own mother’s deeply-held secrets, furtive yearnings, and forbidden love.

Awards and Honours

2019 Fred Kerner Book Award (Canadian Authors Association)(Finalist)

Fiction

The Ghosts of Smyrna: A Novel

Toronto: TSAR Publications, 2013.
PS8609 .D59 G56 2013

Publisher’s Synopsis (from its website)

Aya Katerina, a neighbourhood in Ottoman Smyrna at the end of World War I. Through the eyes of Niko “the Orphan”—his Armenian father was taken away by the soldiers—we see this close world going about its traditional ways. But dark clouds loom in the near distance. We meet Elena, Niko’s aunt and talented artist; his idiosyncratic uncle Polycarp, wiser than he pretends; Manolis the Greek doctor who loves her; Nazım the Turkish journalist who also loves her; Niko’s grandmother who holds the family together; and an assortment of neighbours of all backgrounds. As the War draws to a close, all these people await their fates as the Greek armies invade from the west and are fought back by the forces of Ataturk from the east. A story of love under impossible circumstances and a novel about growing up, this is also an account about a people, a neighbourhood, and a legendary city caught up by forces beyond their control. Aya Katerina goes up in smoke. Quiet and understated, colourful and intensely moving, this is a memorial to a charmed city now lost.