Bridge Books (10+) • Novels

Katuna'da Dokuz Ay
Nine Months in Katuna

Osman Şahin

Editor: Semih Gümüş
Prepared by: Müren Beykan

The true and the legendary story of five young teachers working in a southeastern village school of Turkey!

In his new novel for “Bridge Books” collection, Osman Şahin, one of the great masters of our literature, relates a true story that took place in the winter of 1966. The book sheds light to the present while narrating the change that five young teachers who have just graduated have created in a geography surrounded by poverty, bigotry and discrimination.

Overview

A difficult school year is awaiting five young girls who are appointed to teach in a village school in Katuna, a frontier village two hours south of Mardin. These seventeen year old young teachers have difficulty in adjusting to living in this God forsaken village with no electricity or water. However, their ideals about being teachers and their common sense give them strength and show them the way. The young teachers, who in time learn to communicate with the villagers, most of whom do not even speak Turkish, will manage to change the introvert life style that has been going on in the village for centuries and experience a brand new life.

AUTHOR

Osman Şahin

He was born in Arslanköy, Mersin in 1940. He completed his primary school education in the village he was born and then continued to Diyarbakır Village Institute. After his higher education in Ankara Gazi Education Institute, Department of Physical Education, he worked in Eastern and Southeastern Turkey as a sports teacher in high schools. In 1992, his story The Last Anatolian Nomad (Son Yörük) won second prize in a competition organized by the Sweden Humanist International Association. In the same […]
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