The Applicant

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Buy on Amazon Buy on BN.com Buy on Bookshop.org
*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app

1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Feb 14 2023 | Archive Date Feb 14 2023
Grove Atlantic | Grove Press

Talking about this book? Use #TheApplicant #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!


Description

A singular debut from “an important and radical new literary voice” (Elif Batuman), The Applicant explores with scorching wit and startling brevity what it means to be an immigrant, woman, and emerging writer

It’s 2017 and Leyla, a Turkish twentysomething living in Berlin, is scrubbing toilets at an Alice in Wonderland–themed hostel after failing her thesis, losing her student visa, and suing her German university in a Kafkaesque attempt to reverse her fate.

Increasingly distant from what used to be at arm’s reach—writerly ambitions, tight-knit friendships, a place to call home—Leyla attempts to find solace in the techno beats of Berlin’s nightlife, with little success. Right as the clock winds down on the hold on her visa, Leyla meets a conservative Swedish tourist and—against her political convictions and better judgment—begins to fall in love, or something like it. Will she accept an IKEA life with the Volvo salesman and relinquish her creative dreams, or return to Turkey to her mother and sister, codependent and enmeshed, her father’s ghost still haunting their lives?

While she waits for the German court’s verdict on her future, in the pages of her diary, Leyla begins to parse her unresolved past and untenable present. An indelible character at once precocious and imperiled, Leyla gives voice to the working-class and immigrant struggle to find safety, self-expression, and happiness. The Applicant is an extraordinary dissection of a liminal life between borders and identities, an original and darkly funny debut.

A singular debut from “an important and radical new literary voice” (Elif Batuman), The Applicant explores with scorching wit and startling brevity what it means to be an immigrant, woman, and...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9780802160546
PRICE $26.00 (USD)
PAGES 304

Average rating from 36 members


Readers who liked this book also liked: