In the Temple of a Patient God

Bejan Matur was born into a Kurdish Alevi family and grew up in Southeastern Turkey at a time of virtual civil war, and in this, her first book of poems to be published in the UK, (selected from four collections published in Turkey between 1996 and 2002), the reader is never far away from the haunted, desolate and fragmented landscape of her people and her childhood. Matur carves away at her images and language until they are pared down to reveal their naked mystery, the anguish at their heart. She claims no literary ancestors, drawing instead upon the oral traditions of her childhood. Beautifully translated and with an illuminating introductory essay, this book is a powerful and memorable introduction to the work of an extraordinary young poet.