Eda Gunaydin, "Root and Branch: Essays on Inheritance" (NewSouth, 2022)

Eda Gunaydin joins us today to talk about Root and Branch: Essays on Inheritance (NewSouth, 2022). Lots of themes: Turkey, Australia, Sydney, family, friends, media, food, essays.

That there is no easy translation for ‘awkward’ in other languages suggests that I’m only myself in English. This feels like a loss, because I’d like to think of myself as Turkish, too.

There is a Turkish saying that one’s home is not where one is born, but where one grows full – dogdugun yer degil, doydugun yer. Mixing the personal and political, Eda Gunaydin’s bold and innovative writing explores race, class, gender and violence, and Turkish diaspora.

Equal parts piercing, tender and funny, this book takes us from an overworked and underpaid café job in Western Sydney, the mother-daughter tradition of sharing a meal in the local kebab shop, to the legacies of family migration, and intergenerational trauma.

Root & Branch seeks to unsettle neat descriptions of belonging and place. What are the legacies of migration, apart from loss? And how do we find comfort in where we are?

Eda Gunaydin is a Sydney-based write and teaches at the University of Sydney.

Bede Haines is a solicitor, specialising in litigation and a partner at Holding Redlich, an Australian commercial law firm. He lives in Sydney, Australia. Known to read books, ride bikes and eat cereal (often). bede.haines@holdingredlich.com

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