Indies Introduce

Fiction

• 
  The Applicant, Nazlı Koca
  Grove Press, 9780802160546, February 14, 2023 (Fiction)
  

  “Koca’s The Applicant hits like the first drag of an unfiltered cigarette: brash, bright, unapologetic and genuinely invigorating. Her narrator’s clear-eyed, deadpan assessment of living as a Turkish woman in present-day Berlin — its parties, its haphazardness, its bureaucratic impenetrability — is a welcome, necessary addition to the scene."

  - Camden Avery, The Booksmith, San Francisco, CA
  
  

   

  “I was quickly drawn in by the voice of this epistolary novel, but the intimacy of Leyla’s crises, both existential and real, swallowed me whole. As she waits for a decision about her visa, Leyla is torn between countries, between dreams, between selves — and her private insights critique not only her experiences, but society as a whole. This book speaks to the working class, to millenials, to anyone who has been lost between a dream and a harsh reality.”

  - Laura Kendall, Second Flight Books, Lafayette, IN
  

   

   

  “Written as diary entries and inspired by Nazlı Koca’s own experiences as a Turkish immigrant in Berlin, The Applicant is full of frank and witty musings about navigating academia, work, politics, relationships, displacement, and loss.”

  - Alyssa Raymond, Copper Dog Books, Beverly, MA

   

   

  “Reading The Applicant is like reading the journal of your most interesting friend. Leyla is thoughtful, angry, and funny. She navigates the debasing double standards of German anti-immigrant policy and prejudice. She works at an Alice-in-Wonderland-themed hostel and takes home a measly wage and little trinkets tourists leave behind. She alternately avoids and entertains her Turkish family’s phone calls. She takes up with a very stable Swede. Undergirding all of this are reflections on the gaping maw of capitalism, her complicated grief over her father’s death, and her stifled artistic pursuits.”

  - Emerson Perper, Curious Iguana, Frederick, MD