The Delayed Dead

Following shortly after Issızlığın Ortasında, Geç Kalmış Ölü depicts Ayhan of Issızlığın Ortasında during fifteen days he spent in İskenderun searching for Zafer, with the action again revealed through flashbacks. The novel consists of three parts, with the first and third parts set just before dawn in a hotel room, where Ayhan spends a tense fortyfive minutes resisting the decision to get on a freighter in the harbor that will take him abroad. To stay means to take charge of his own destiny and break free from Zafer, who chose to abandon his political beliefs; to continue chasing after Zafer represents a mediocre and defeated life. In the end Ayhan goes to Mount Nemrut and executes his final decision—to die by his own hand.

The second part of the novel narrates Ayhan’s time in the city, which allows Eroğlu to examine the cosmopolitanism of İskenderun and its Ottoman history under French rule. During his search, Ayhan meets characters such as Beatrice, an Italian who fell in love with an African American working in the construction of the petroleum line in Ceyhan; Fuad, who is from a feudal family with roots in Beirut; and Gül, a callgirl who is looking for a savior to rescue her from life in a brothel. Ayhan’s search in the novel is intertwined with discussions on the EastWest problem and themes such as suicide.