The Applicant

Leyla, an aspiring writer from Türkiye, awaits a decision on her student visa in Berlin after a rejected creative writing thesis submission. In her debut novel, Koca explores the Turkish immigrant experience in Germany through an epistolary format. Leyla’s diary entries detail hookups, parties, drug and alcohol use, and her work as a hostel cleaner; they are interspersed seamlessly with passages of searing clarity condemning the racist and misogynistic structures and individuals that have thrust her into this liminal space. She’s ultimately faced with two choices—marry her Swedish hookup-turned-boyfriend and ensure her security, or face her demons and challenge the Turkish regime, which, in part, stymies her creative writing. Turkish actor and narrator Günes Sensoy deftly captures Leyla’s escapist restraint while conveying her competing desire to be heard and take up space. Leyla’s dissociative and self-sabotaging behaviors challenge listeners to look within themselves to find the same.