"Poised between melancholy and yearning, this wry, moving, and beautifully crafted collection of stories is a rich and multilayered meditation on aloneness in all its complex shades and metamorphoses." – Tristan Hughes
“A powerful and poetic new voice in the art of storytelling.” – Selçuk Altun
"Masculinity is the theme of this engaging and cosmopolitan collection of short stories, which examines men and their testosterone-fuelled ways in a slew of locations, from Cardiff to Istanbul, through Lisbon and Odesa to London and Paris ... Much as the invention on display in these stories is enjoyable it’s the atmosphere and sense of place that allows some of them to properly lodge in the mind." – Jon Gower, Nation. Cymru
From Özgür Uyanık, novelist and film director, comes a debut collection of audacious, darkly wry and compassionate short stories. Driven by universal themes of desire, mortality, loss and yearning, each story evokes both the melancholy and the hope inherent in all stages of life, from childhood through to maturity.
Artists, writers, lovers, killers: all types of men walk these pages, along the streets of Cardiff, İstanbul, London, Paris, Odesa and Lisbon. All seeking to find a way to belong in the world.
Men Alone is a meditative vision from a unique voice that explores the many – often confounding – permutations of modern masculinity.
Writer and filmmaker Özgür Uyanık spent his formative years in London after his family emigrated from Türkiye in 1980. With a background in the UK film industry and a few years of directing commercials in İstanbul, Özgür transitioned to the realm of literature while continuing to work on his film projects. In 2020, his first novel Conception, a darkly comedic satire that delves into the intricacies of the contemporary art world, was published. That year he also won the Criminally Good Crime Writing Competition at the Essex Book Festival and was a contributing co-editor for an anthology of essays by underrepresented writers. His short stories, essays and book reviews have been published in the UK since 2017. Men Alone is Özgür’s debut collection of short stories.