"Insulting Turkishness": Charges Reopened Against Author Elif Shafak
By Kimberly Maul

Kirkus Reviews
The Book Standard
July 11 2006

A case against author Elif Shafak, who is charged with "insulting
Turkishness" under Article 301 in the Turkish Criminal Code, reached
a new level this week. Shafak wrote The Bastard of Istanbul, in which
a character references Armenian genocide.

Last month, a public prosecutor in Istanbul dismissed the charges,
based on Shafak’s argument that the book is a work of fiction and
therefore un-prosecutable.

A complaint from a member of the Unity of Jurists, a group of
right-wing lawyers, caused the seventh high criminal court to overrule
the decision. The charges have also been brought against Shafak’s
translator, Asli Bican, and publisher, Semi Sokmen, of the Metis
Publishing House.

"The situation in Turkey has changed since the introduction of
Article 301 last year," Sara Whyatt, director of the Writers in Prison
Committee at International PEN, told The Guardian on Monday.

"I think the trials are intended to harass and intimidate these writers
and journalists. Elif Shafak is at the beginning of what could be a
long and painful process."

Shafak faces three years in prison if convicted.

At the end of 2005, Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk was persecuted under
Article 301, but the charges were later dropped.

In Shafak’s Bastard, two families-one in Istanbul and one, an exiled
Armenian family, in San Francisco-share an old secret that affects
their current lives. It is set to be released next year from Viking
Penguin. The date for Shafak’s trial has not been set.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux released in the U.S. last year an English
translation of the author’s The Saint of Incipient Sanities.