Fesleğen (Book)

Fesleğen is a novel by Hikmet Anıl Öztekin, published in 2017 by Hayykitap. Its first edition was released in March 2017. The work exemplifies the author’s literary production shaped around spiritual themes.

The novel develops through a narrative structure centered on two characters named “Fesleğen” and “Seyyah” (The Traveler). The protagonist, Fesleğen, serves as the narrator and reflects an inner quest focused on personal vulnerability, loneliness, and the absence of love. The work addresses the needs for belonging, security, and protection of an individual struggling to survive far from their homeland. Within the framework of Sufi themes, the concept of “friend of God” indicates a notion of guidance, while the metaphor “the rain being sufficient for the tears” expresses the relationship between inner pain and submission.

Throughout the novel, divine love, loyalty, separation, and the longing for “vuslat” (union) are explored. The term “vuslat,” in its traditional Sufi sense, encompasses both the desire to reunite with others and to merge with the absolute being. The author opts for a style based on intuition and introspection rather than didactic narration.

The novel is written in Turkish. Although it belongs to modern Turkish literature in terms of language and style, the text also reflects Sufi and metaphysical elements in its linguistic structure and narrative form. These features allow the work to carry a poetic style and adopt an inward-looking narrative approach focused on individual experience.

The work is conveyed through a first-person narrator, aiming to establish a direct connection with the reader. Emotion-centered expressions shape it and prioritizes personal experience in its narrative. Despite its novelistic framework, it exhibits autobiographical and poetic stylistic traits. Structurally, it shows affinities with the linguistic and formal codes of Sufi instructional texts.