Demir Özlü'de Nostalji

Abstract

Nostalgia is conceptualized as a multilayered form of consciousness that reconstructs the individual’s experience of time, space, and identity, extending beyond a mere longing for the past. In modern and late modern societies, the acceleration of temporal perception, along with experiences of displacement and crises of belonging, creates the conditions for nostalgia to acquire renewed significance. Within this framework, the study aims to examine the relationship between nostalgia and narrative production in Turkish literature, with a particular focus on how nostalgia functions as a writing strategy in the works of Demir Özlü. The study is grounded in Svetlana Boym’s theory of nostalgia and focuses on the genres of memoir, diary, and letter. Within these forms, nostalgia is approached as a mechanism that reconstructs memory and generates narrative. In Özlü’s texts, the act of writing is directly intertwined with the process of remembering. Accordingly, writing in these genres corresponds less to the recording of the past than to its reconstruction. In this context, memory operates as a selective and transformative structure in which past experiences are not transmitted as they were but are reorganized, interpreted, and often idealized. Özlü’s literary production, shaped by themes of exile, urban life, and existential inquiry, plays a decisive role in the formation of nostalgic consciousness. His departure from Turkey and his experiences in various European cities generate a persistent tension between the desire to return and the impossibility of return. Cities such as Istanbul, Berlin, Paris, and Stockholm emerge as narrative spaces in which the search for belonging intensifies. These spaces function not merely as geographical realities but as sites of memory reconstructed through consciousness. The study demonstrates that nostalgia renders the boundaries between personal writing and fiction permeable, while also transforming perceptions of time and space and shaping narrative structure. In Özlü’s texts, nostalgia is thus evaluated as a fundamental writing strategy that organizes memory, reconstructs time, and makes narrative possible. In this respect, the study seeks to contribute to the reconsideration of nostalgia in Turkish literature at both theoretical and narrative levels.