Ayşegül Savaş Discusses THE WILDERNESS with Lauren Markham

Join us for our next event at Transit Books HQ! Ayşegül Savaş and Lauren Markham will discuss THE WILDERNESS, Savaş's deeply felt chronicle of the first forty days of new motherhood, part of Transit's narrative nonfiction series, Undelivered Lectures. Wine and hanging out to follow.

About THE WILDERNESS:

In the final weeks of her pregnancy, Ayşegül Savaş becomes fascinated by the mythology around the first forty days after giving birth, and the invisible beings that are said to surround the mother. “In Turkish, we speak of extracting the forty days, like a sort of exorcism. My grandmothers assure me that it will all get better after forty days are out.” A friend lends a book that suggests forty days of rest and fortifying broths and avoiding wind and cold.

In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, forty days are seen as a period of trial and transformation. They are often journeys into the wilderness and “its vast and unruly territories.” When the baby arrives, Savaş charts her own path into the wilderness of new motherhood—a space of contradiction, of chaos and care, mothering and being mothered. “What is the trial of the postpartum crossing?” writes Savaş. “Where will mother and child emerge once they have left the wild?”

In the first work of nonfiction by the author of The Anthropologists, Savaş invites the reader to journey with her into the wild—a place entered after creation, a place you never leave, and a place that, in a sense, never leaves you.

Aysegül Savaş is the author of the acclaimed novels Walking on the Ceiling, White on White, and, most recently, The Anthropologists. Her work has been translated into six languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, and elsewhere. She lives in Paris.

Lauren Markham is the author of the award-winning The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life and A Map of Future Ruins. Her work has appeared in VQR, Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. Her forthcoming book, Immemorial, will be published by Transit Books in 2025.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Transit Books, 1250 Addison Street, Berkeley, United States