Processes in the literature of 1990s-2000s Turkiye

This study focuses on the situation in Türkiye's literature during the 1990s and 2000s. It was marked by a dramatic paradigm shift in the attitudes of creators, the desacralization of writing, the loss of cognitive and educational functions by literature, and its conversion into a job, a business, and a game. The paper argues that Turkish literature's focus on consumption alone allows for a " vertical" classification – i.e., separation based on the intellectual capacity of the readers: high art/elite literature, designed for a narrow circle of connoisseurs and requiring considerable effort and a large cultural outlook for the adequate perception of the text (Orhan Pamuk, Ayfer Tunç, Sema Kaygusuz, Hakan Günday, etc.) and the mass literature to be read, say, in public transport or at home after a hard day's work (Alp Aras, Gülse Birsel, Nermin Bezmen, Funda Özlem Şeran, Kudret Alkan, Gündüz Öğüt, etc.). The study devoted a special place to the middle-ground literature (Ömer Zülfü Livaneli, Ayşe Kulin, Buket Uzuner, Ahmet Ümit, Canan Tan, İskender Pala, Tuna Kiremitçi, Seray Şahiner, etc.), usually called "belles-lettres" in Russian and international literary studies. The term failed to take root in Turkish literary studies. The middle-ground belles-lettres is closely related to both the "upper" and the "lower" strata of literature. Only time can determine whether a certain text belongs to belles-lettres, "high art" or "mass" prose. As part of this vertical gradation, the author reviews the mainstream genre in Turkish mass literature: fiction (subgenres, authors, publishers specializing in the genre, etc.). The study highlights that research into Turkish fiction is complicated by the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult to classify it as a purely literary phenomenon. Fiction books compete with Turkish Hollywood – Yeşilçam – as well as comic books and video games. As a result, the author concluded that researching modern Turkish fiction only through the lens of literary studies is hardly feasible. Studying this phenomenon requires involving specialists from other humanities – cultural studies, sociology, philosophy, and psychology – necessitating the development of new interdisciplinary methods.