The Applicant
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
'An important and radical new literary voice' Elif Batuman
It's 2017 and Leyla, a leftwing Turkish twenty-something living in Berlin, is scrubbing toilets at an Alice in Wonderland-themed hostel in order to stay afloat while awaiting a verdict on her visa status. Having failed her master's thesis and sued the German university over its decision, she is on the verge of losing her student visa and being forced to return to Istanbul, a city she thought she'd left behind for good.
As the clock winds down on her temporary visa, Leyla meets a right-wing Swedish tourist at a bar one night and-against her political convictions and better judgment-begins to fall in love. Will she choose to live a cookie-cutter life as the wife of a Volvo salesman, or just as unimaginable, return to Turkey to her mother and sister, codependent and enmeshed, the ghost of her father still haunting their lives?
Written in wry, propulsive diary form and with probing self-reflection, Koca radically and courageously explores one's place in a deeply uncertain world, examining the bounds of state violence and self-destruction, of social dissociation and intense familial love. The Applicant is a stunning dissection of a liminal life lived between borders and identities.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Koca's kinetic debut follows the struggles of a failed graduate student from Turkey in 2017 Berlin. Leyla, 26, lives in a state of limbo after her thesis was declared not "academic enough." In response, she filed a lawsuit against the university, and while waiting for a verdict, she works as a cleaner at a trendy hostel, writes in her diary, and worries about being sent back to Turkey. (Off days are spent drinking and snorting ketamine.) Leyla also wants to be a writer, and at the suggestion of friends, she considers turning her diary into a series of performances and a memoir. Meanwhile, she hooks up with a Swedish lover and begins to fall for him, frequently traveling to Gothenburg to spend time together. Koca is at her best when focusing on Leyla's everyday experiences; she does a good job blending the mundane details (diary entries parse the plots of Turkish soap operas and tally the "treasures" Leyla finds left behind at the hostel) and nightlife exploits, but as Leyla's star as a performer rises and her lawsuit verdict nears, the narrative wobbles as it rushes to its unbalanced ending. Leyla's a charismatic enough lead, but she's let down by the plotting.
