Elif Şafak

[Colwyn]

Hilary was listening to Desert Island Discs this morning (whilst I slaved in the garden) which featured the Turkish author Elif Şafak. I hadn't heard of her but apparently she is extremely popular in Turkey. Hilary ordered her novel The Bast*rd of Istanbul from Amazon (Kindle) and I'll get to read it when she's finished. In the novel she deals with the Armenian genocide. Now, of course, discussion of the "genocide" is illegal in Turkey - under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code - as it is an insult to Turkishness. She was prosecuted by the authorities and reflected on the strange irony of her (real) lawyer standing up in a (real) court and defending what her (fictional) Armenian protagonists said in her novel. The prosecutor then dropped the charge and the case was dismissed. [That was in 2006; I wonder if the same result would occur today].

I'll report on the book when Hilary is finally finished with it.

[JohnF]

A liitle bit like the curates egg, she is a supporter of the wee fella, but occasionally pops up to support freedom of speech and women's rights.

Other than that I think she is a very good author and well worth a read,  Baba ve Piç is her biggest selling novel I believe (that's how you get round the swear filter   )

JF

[Colwyn]

Here's a recent article by her where she certainly doesn't sound like an Erdogan supporter - but she does seem to have complex or complicated ideas.


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/14/turkey-constitution-referendum-despotism-erdogan-crush-opposition

[Ian]

Listened to her on hardtalk about a week ago - really good summary of where Turkey is at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0534psc