Mother Tongue

When Erdem Çeliktaş, a writer from Turkey, wakes one day to find he can no longer speak or understand anything but English, his life is overturned. While Erdem’s native Turkish has always held him as father, author, and political activist in a familiar light, Erdem’s English mind offers an altered perspective, awareness, even character. With no explanation or cure to be found, Erdem must find a way to reframe his thoughts, his work, even his memories in order to understand his fractured world. Mother Tongue is an elegant journey that examines how we may be shaped and reshaped by language. Üstündag creates a clever and bittersweet pilgrimage of empathy and change, quietly shining light on the overwhelming isolation of the immigrant, the refugee, and the traveler.

About the Author:

Ezgi Üstündağ was born in upstate New York and grew up in a Turkish-speaking household in Ames, Iowa. She is a graduate of Duke University and currently lives in Kraków, Poland. Her short fiction has appeared in both English- and Turkish-language publications, including FlashFiction Magazine, The Eastern Iowa Review, YKY Kitap-lık, and others.

Praise for Mother Tongue:

"Mother Tongue is a slim volume of less than 100 pages, but any reader making a small investment in time will reap a windfall return of reading pleasure" - Tom Strelich, NY Journal of Books. 

Full review text here.