And some of his books could only be published after his death. He never saw a second imprint of any of his books. He was a professor of engineering who wrote novels and stories in his personal life. Oğuz Atay never lived the life of a professional fiction writer. In some late photographs he wore a beard beside his mustache, and his hair was a little bit shaggy. Until his last years, he always wore the Douglas mustache, and his hair was well combed. His photographs from later years show a gradual change in his appearance.

The young Atay seems to have imitated the appearance of a gentleman. He wore a 'Douglas mustache,' which came from Kirk Douglas, I'd guess. According to his college yearbook, Atay was 'an interesting type' among his peers. His life as an engineer- academic did not reflect his character. What he did were things he was officially supposed to do. He lived seriously, but he did not feel that way. However, Atay had something in mind when using the word 'game' to describe his life. He was still a lecturer in the university when he died. His academic life was a straight and unbroken line. After graduating in 1957, Atay was employed as a professor at the Istanbul State Engineering and Architecture Academy (now Yıldız Technical University) in 1960. Afterward he studied in the Civil Engineering Department of Istanbul Technical University in 1951. He was schooled in Ankara at Maarif Koleji, which was one of the most prominent state colleges for the children of bureaucrats and rich tradesmen. This seems strange since he lived a serious life according to general understanding. Oğuz Atay wrote, 'My entire life was a game in which I wanted to be taken seriously.' This binary caused a duality both in his character and in his style as a writer. He owed them, but he did not want to be one of them. He always had a dichotomous attitude toward the Republic's elite. This affected the novelist throughout his life. Oğuz Atay's family was thus among the official elite during the single- party regime. His father Cemil Atay was a member of Parliament for three consecutive periods before the first democratic elections in 1950.

His first and best-known novel 'Tutunamayanlar' (The Disconnected) was found to be 'a rebellion for both its style and content.' Though he lived the modest and puritan life of a Turkish engineer under the umbrella of Kemalist ideology, Atay garnered a cult following for a postmodern critique against Kemalist modernization thanks to the bitter ironies in his novels and stories. Oğuz Atay was the unmanageable genius of Turkish modern fiction.

Tutunamayanlar by Oğuz Atay