ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD LONGLIST * NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER , TIME , PUBLISHERS WEEKLY , AND ELECTRIC LITERATURE * A DAKOTA JOHNSON x TEATIME BOOK CLUB PICK * VULTURE #1 BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE SELECTION " The Anthropologists is mesmerizing; I felt I read it in a single breath. " -Garth Greenwell " Savas is an author who simply, and astoundingly, knows. " -Bryan Washington Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should their life here look like? What rituals will structure their days? Whom can they consider family? As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, gathers footage from the neighborhood like an anthropologist observing local customs. “Forget about daily life,” chides her grandmother on the phone. “We named you for a whole continent and you're filming a park.” Back in their home countries parents age, grandparents get sick, nieces and nephews grow up-all just slightly out of reach. But Asya and Manu's new world is growing, too, they hope. As they open the horizons of their lives, what and whom will they hold onto, and what will they need to release? Unfolding over a series of apartment viewings, late-night conversations, last rounds of drinks and lazy breakfasts, The Anthropologists is a soulful examination of homebuilding and modern love, written with Aysegül Savas' distinctive elegance, warmth, and humor. “Utterly enchanting.” ― The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice “2024 was the year of the breakup book . . . Here is an antidote. Manu and Asya's concerns are modest . . . It's a joy to be on this journey with them. Each sentence sings, and watching [them] find a home in each other rather than in the places they've been is defiantly, explicitly hopeful.” ― Vulture, #1 Book of the Year “It is a novel that takes as its subject the texture, routines, and rituals of a particular lifestyle-itinerant and youthful, or at least untethered by children-and serves as sort of a field guide to its participants . . . One of the book's strengths lies in Savas's ability to capture the experience of life as an outsider in a new place . . . Savas approaches her novel with a keen awareness of the reality through which it crafts and filters its make-believe.” ― Rhian Sasseen, The Atlantic “An erudite and elegant meditation on modern life and modern love . . . Don't be deceived by Savas's cool, matter-of-fact tone–beneath it lie layers of wisdom, delicacy and subtlety.” ― The Guardian “The peculiar habits and folkways of the creative class are on study in Aysegül Savas's latest, The Anthropologists . . . Asya and Manu are on their own, left to figure things out from day to day, and, in that figuring-out process, life takes its form. Passing time, the book suggests, is all that there is.” ― The Wall Street Journal “In this subtle and resonant novel, Savas charts the way we sometimes choose-and sometimes drift into-the path to our future.” ― The New Yorker “Insightful . . . With subtlety and sincerity, Savas encourages readers to be anthropologists in their own lives, in hopes they'll discover for themselves what it truly means to live.” ― Time, "100 Must Read Books of 2024" “Here, a unicorn: a propulsive, well-written novel about a couple in which both parties enjoy the other's company . . . The book feels a little like a magic trick. Through pitch-perfect observations, droll and intimate interactions, through attention and care, Aysegul Savas has conjured a page turner.” ― Vanity Fair, “21 Best Books of 2024!" “The prose is fragmented and mesmerizing, attuned to the rhythms of daily life in this new city. A beautiful and wise novel about finding ways to belong, love one another, and compose a good life away from home.” ― Bruna Dantas Lobato, Lit Hub “Aysegül Savas' perceptive new novel, The Anthropologists , follows a nomadic couple as they struggle to find an apartment in an unnamed foreign city . . . The idealistic lovers find themselves chafing against society's idea of adulthood and look to kindred spirits . . . in hopes of figuring out how to live a good life.” ― Time.com, “12 New Books You Should Read in July” “Savas's third novel is a romance, an immigration story, and an open-hearted manual for living.” ― New York Magazine “So I loved, absolutely loved The Anthropologists. It's by the Turkish writer Aysegül Savas. It came out a few months ago . . . The book is really about how you make a life together with someone else. And what is the bedrock of this book is that the relationship is really loving, but that It doesn't mean that the big questions of life are easily settled.” ― Alexandra Schwartz “The prose, minimal and elegant, casts a well-rounded vision of existence, making clear that the small, mundane, day-to-day details