Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Tanpinar?

Title: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Tanpinar?

Speaker Egem Atik

Date: 07.01.2025

At the end of 1958, Woman in the Moon (1987), Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar writes the following in his diary: "My novel is not progressing. One of the points I am very afraid of is the softness of women. I confess that I once loved Virginia Woolf very much and ... I fear this influence for her" (2008, p. 137). In this speech, Woman in the Moon and Orlando (1928) will be compared to trace the Woolf influence that frightened Tanpınar. In the light of Jack Halberstram's notions of queer failure and Judith Butler's performativity Orlandoof the protagonist, Woman in the MoonThe discussion will focus on the way the novels blur the naturalized distinctions and binary oppositions of gender identity and sexual orientation and expose their permeability. This discussion will invite participants to rethink the reception of Tanpınar within the literary canon, who, despite all his reservations, questions the validity of the supposedly fixed and immutable patterns of gender and sexuality in his novel, influenced by Woolf.