Toprak

Toprak is the second novel in Buket Uzuner's Nature Elements tetralogy, following unconventional journalist Defne Kaman as she investigates the theft of ancient artifacts from the Hittite era near Çorum — and then vanishes herself.

The last confirmed sighting places her at the Yazılıkaya rock sanctuary, where a local legend about a watchful deer begins to circulate through the city. The provincial governor, the police, and a self-styled "eco-hacker" named Karaca join forces to find her, while young people mobilize online under the hashtag #DEFNEKAMANNEREDE.

Beneath the adventure, Uzuner threads a psycho-mythological meditation on the earth as it appears in Turkish mythology — the underworld, the womb of the living world — building an ecological subtext into a fast-moving mystery.