The Few

“I am here. Where are you?” These desperate words link the two protagonists of Hakan Günday’s raw and fearless novel The Few. Derdâ is an eleven-year-old girl pulled out of boarding school by her mother who, without telling her, plans to sell her as a wife to a conservative tribesman. She goes with her new husband to London, where for five years he abuses and all but imprisons her. Even after escaping, Derdâ soon finds herself preyed upon by Londoners as well as other Turkish immigrants who have formed a criminal underworld.

In a parallel story set in Turkey, Derda, an eleven-year-old boy, buries his dead mother in secret to avoid being taken to the state orphanage. Alone, he becomes with an illegal book printing operation. He finds himself obsessed with a Turkish novelist, who Derda grows convinced died because he felt misunderstood and unappreciated. Increasingly unstable, Derda targets two contemporary writers, whom he accuses of stealing the writer’s fame.

The Few is an unflinching story of the vulnerability of the world’s youth when cultures, politics, and generations collide. In a time when countless refugees and children slip through the cracks, it is a powerful admonishment not to forget those who are helpless victims.

Hakan Günday was born in 1976 on the island of Rhodes in Greece and currently lives in Istanbul. He is the bestselling author of eight novels, which have been published in nineteen territories.

Alexander Dawe has translated several contemporary Turkish novels. In 2010 he received a PEN/Heim translation Fund grant to translate the short stories of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar.

Praise for More

"The importance of this novel . . . lies in its horrific portrayals of refugees fleeing desperate situations. . . . [A] complex, Dostoyevsky-like inquiry into man’s capacity for evil." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“Imagine a nine-year-old child assisting his father with the family business—the ruthless smuggling of humans. Imagine this child’s apprenticeship in profit and survival and unspeakable cruelties that numb him to what it means to be human. Imagine this child’s graduation from bystander to killer. Hakan Günday will take you there in his unflinching and momentous novel More.” —Ursula Hegi, New York Times bestselling author of Stones from the River

"This urgent novel by one of Turkey's most acclaimed contemporary writers demands to be read not just because of its subject matter, the current migrant crisis and human trafficking, but because of its timeless exploration of violence, fidelity to family, and the extremes to which any of us will go to craft a new life from the wreckage of an old one. This translation of Hakan Günday's work is a gift." —Elliot Ackerman, author of Green on Blue

"An unflinching, compelling novel that sweeps away abstractions like refugee crisis and plunges us head first into the agony of a world where human lives bleed against lines drawn on a map." —Siddhartha Deb, author of The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India

"Günday has created a moral maze of a novel, making us think deeply about one of the most pressing and tragic crises of our modern world." —National (Abu Dhabi)

"Move over Orhan Pamuk. There's an exciting new Turkish novelist in town. [A] dark and unrelenting voyage into a modern Celine-an hell, [More] takes on one of the most significant issues facing the world today. . . . This is a disturbing, politically charged portrait of the refugee crisis. A Tin Drum for a new generation." —Kirkus Reviews

“Hakan Günday is one of the rising stars of the Turkish literary scene.” —Time Out Istanbul

“Hakan Günday captures contemporary Turkey in all its complexities.” —Livres Hebdo

“More is masterful, and epic.” —Alternatives Internationales

“A dark journey through the psyche of a child who becomes a torturer. The book packs a punch.” —Pelerin