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The Anthropologists

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About this listen

A Simon & Schuster audiobook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every listener. Coming of Age Contemporary Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic reviews

An erudite and elegant meditation on modern life and modern loveAsya and Manu could very well be a couple in a novel by Sally Rooney or Caleb Azumah Nelson… Don’t be deceived by Savaş’s cool, matter-of-fact tone – beneath it lie layers of wisdom, delicacy and subtlety… This is not your typical marriage novel, or immigrant/expat novel, or novel of the city – although it threads together all these tropes. In writing about “the slow and leisurely rot of a day”, with all its delights and anxieties, and in praising its “unremarkable grace”, as Asya hopes to do with her filming, the author has created something remarkable.’
‘A meticulous chronicle of circumspection, a knowing assessment of the motions we go through in cities, and a portrait of aspiration… I found myself not wanting The Anthropologists to end... Savaş’s interest is not in one destination, but in the minutiae of the couple’s daily lives… This immaculately observed book is about learning where those limits lie, and learning to live with them.’
'In this subtle and resonant novel, Savas charts the way we sometimes choose-and sometimes drift into-the path to our future'
'Utterly enchanting'
'It is a novel that takes as its subject the texture, routines and rituals of a particular lifestyle – itinerant and youthful, or at least untethered by children – and serves as sort of a field guide to its participants . . . One of the book's strengths lies in Savas's ability to capture the experience of life as an outsider in a new place'
‘Yet another gorgeous, gorgeous book from Aysegül Savaş: she is an author who simply, and astoundingly, knows. Savaş knows hope. Savaş knows despair. Savaş knows joy, and malaise, and laughter and curiosity. There are worlds inside of Savaş' prose, and The Anthropologists is both a bright light and a map for how to be. A massively heartening achievement.’
‘Like Walter Benjamin, Ayşegül Savaş uncovers trapdoors to bewilderment everywhere in everyday life; like Henry James, she sees marriage as a mystery, unsoundably deep. The Anthropologists is mesmerising; I felt I read it in a single breath.’
Savaş’s prose is an X-ray – an acute portrait of the tender frequencies that make a life.’
The Anthropologists is about love, youth, and that most profound and elusive of subjects – happiness. Full of delicacy, wisdom and wit, this is another gorgeous work from one of my favourite writers.’
All stars
Most relevant
i should have listened to it twice to remind myself what it was about. in one ear out the other. Snooze

Forgettable

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