The Time Regulation Institute

The Time Regulation Institute, published in Turkish as Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü, is a novel by the Turkish writer Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, serialized from 1954 and published in book form in 1961 by Remzi Kitabevi. Narrated by its protagonist Hayri Irdal, it satirizes the modernization of Turkish society through the story of an institute set up to bring the country's clocks into line with Western time, a plot that plays off the real 1926 Gregorian Calendar Act introduced under Kemal Ataturk. The novel has been translated into English twice, in 2001 and again in 2013, and is admired for using absurdist comedy to examine the strains of rapid modernization on Turkish life.