About “The time regulation institute”
The Time Regulation Institute is a tragicomedy of modernization, first translated into English more than fifty years after its initial publication. Written by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, the novel follows Hayri Irdal, an antihero involved with the Time Regulation Institute, a bureaucratic organization that enforces a system of fines to change all clocks in Turkey to Western time. The story features eccentric characters, including a television mystic, a pharmacist who practices alchemy, a dignitary from the lost Ottoman Empire, and a "clock whisperer." Told through sessions with a psychoanalyst, the novel explores the collision of tradition and modernity, East and West, blending hope for modernity with nostalgia for the past.
Praise for “The time regulation institute”
“Ingeniously satirical and hauntingly philosophical . . . Bracingly original . . . [A] superb translation.”
“A modernist novel par excellence: absurdist, obsessive, funny, dark . . . An excellent book about the terrible struggle to impose order onto inner and outer states.”
“A truly pathbreaking novel, at once nostalgic and modernist, contemporary and out of its time.”
Book details
- Latest edition
- 2013 · ISBN 9780143106739
- ISBN
- 9780143106739
Frequently asked questions
How many pages is The time regulation institute?
The time regulation institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar has 401 pages.
Book descriptions, author biographies, award records and review quotes on this page are courtesy of Penguin Random House.