The Happy Reader - Issue 16

On the cover this time, sonic trailblazer Moses Sumney is photographed by Kennedi Carter in Asheville, North Carolina, where he lives.

Our Book of the Season is Sabahattin Ali’s breathtaking romance, MADONNA IN A FUR COAT. Published to indifference in the early ‘40s it’s become one of the biggest literary blockbusters in Turkey in recent years — and the question of how and why it went from underground legend to mass-market hit is intriguing, just like the layered narratives of the novel itself. Contributors include: Elif Shafak, Julie Verhoeven, Liz Johnson Artur, Rob Doyle, Richard Godwin, and Kaya Genç.

PART 1

Page numbers

Snippets

The Interview: MOSES SUMNEY by Jia Tolentino — ‘It’s a bit weird to talk to you, because I feel like I know you’

Recent reads

Less recent reads

PART 2

Story of a book

Readings by Elif Shafak — Entranced by a gender-flipping amorous whirlwind

Interview by Ayşegül Sert — ‘He’d find all this attention very amusing’

Epoch by David Selim Sayers — Put it on the lost generation shelf

Four artworks by Julie Verhoeven, Liz Johnson Artut, Banu Cennetoğlu and Viviane Sassen

Appendix

Letters

Now it’s Middlemarch o’clock