“We should never forget that we are always left somewhere, that we are pursued by our own ghosts and that we all have to live a continuous banishment and captivity in our personal adventures, in spite of all our efforts. Nothing else matters.”
The last words of Mario Levi’s first short story, Bir Şehre Gidememek (Not Being Able to Go to a City, 1990), may also be considered as a preface to a life of an author, who mostly traces his personal history and his own ghosts via literature, and who says that everything in literature is autobiographic. Starting from his first literary work, Mario Levi, who is today considered as one of most important modern novelists of Turkish literature, has used many autobiographic qualities in his short stories and novels. In one of his recent interviews, he also describes his attitude as an author by stating that a realistic expression of life is only possible through a life in real terms.
Mario Levi was born in 1957, as a member of a Jewish family living in Istanbul. He graduated from Saint Michel High School and studied French Language and Literature at Istanbul University. His first articles were published in the daily Şalom, which is one of the best-known media organs of the Jewish minority in Turkey. Afterwards in the ‘80s, he started to write in countrywide periodicals and journals like Cumhuriyet, Milliyet Sanat, Gergedan and Varlik.
Before the publication of his first short story, Bir Şehre Gidememek, Levi's university graduation thesis focusing on Belgian singer, director and actor Jacques Brel was published as a novelised version under the title of Bir Yalnız Adam, Jacques Brel (A Lonely Man, Jacques Brel, 1986). With Bir Şehre Gidememek, Levi won the Haldun Taner Story Prize in 1990. A year later, his second collection of short stories entitled Madam Floridis Dönmeyebilir (Madam Floridis May not Return) was published. Somewhat different from the previous one, this collection mostly focuses on the lives of minorities in Istanbul. In 1992, Levi wrote his first novel, En Güzel Aşk Hikâyemiz (Our Best Love Story). Then, after seven years of silence, the book that is probably his masterpiece, İstanbul Bir Masaldı (Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale) was published. This novel won one of the longest standing literary prizes in Turkey, the Yunus Nadi Novel Prize (2000). After this book, Levi said: “I believe that I repaid my debt of gratitude and so I am not going to write any more about the Jewish identity.”
The connection between realities and fiction may be the most fascinating aspect of Levi’s world of literature. Hulki Aktunç defines Levi’s effort “as a search of style,” and adds that “it is almost like he is trying to tell us: ‘I narrate so complex states of mind and so complicated problems of the human condition, these cannot be explained with short sentences.’” As a reply to this comment, Mario Levi stated that his main concern is to find not a style, but a language; to be able to explain what he seeks to, and to have a working connection with his readers. “I don’t like authors who have the attitude: ‘I simply wrote this book; what people get out of this book is not my concern.’ No! I want to narrate (a story) and access people. This is my existence.”
After İstanbul Bir Masaldı, Levi has published two more novels: Lunapark Kapandı (Funfair is Closed, 2005) and Karanlık Çökerken Neredeydiniz? (Where Were You When Darkness Fell?, 2009). The former tells the love affair between a young woman and a middle-aged man and their conflict with common values and cultural stereotypes, in which the characters also get to face themselves and their standings in life. The latter mostly focuses on the ’78 generation, a phrase defining the Turkish left movements before the military coup. After 30 years, some members of ’78ers return to Istanbul from the countries in which they had lived as refugees, and start a game called “Istanbul: My Life”.
In addition to being a writer, Mario Levi has worked in different areas like journalism, radio programming and teaching. Currently he lectures at the Yeditepe University and moderates creative writing workshops. Levi, whose stories and novels have been published among others in English, French, German, Greek, Italian and Romanian, is acknowledged today as one of the leading authors of the recent decades in Turkey.
