TURKEY TORN OVER AUTHOR’S TRIAL
Calgary Sun, Canada
Sept 10 2006
Pregnant novelist faces trial of ‘insulting’ nation for writing
on genocide
ISTANBUL, Turkey — Elif Shafak, one of Turkey’s leading authors,
is about to have a baby — and go on trial.
The reason for this strange conjunction of joy and foreboding is
her new novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, which has exposed her to a
charge of "insulting Turkishness" because it touches on one of the
most disputed episodes of her country’s history — the massacres of
Armenians during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
A University of Arizona literature professor, the 35-year-old Shafak
divides her time between Tucson and Istanbul. She sought a postponement
of her trial, set for Sept. 21, until after her first child is born,
but was refused.
She could get three years in prison, though similar trials of other
Turkish writers have usually folded on technicalities and no one has
gone to jail.
"I think my case is very bizarre because, for the first time, they
are trying fictional characters," said Shafak.
The case has broad ramifications, highlighting a rising wave of Turkish
nationalism and the whole question of whether Turkey, a Western ally
and NATO member, should be admitted to the liberal, democratic European
Union — something the Bush administration supports.
Turks who long for EU membership worry trials of writers are setting
back their cause. But nationalists such as Kemal Kerincsiz, one of
the lawyers suing Shafak, say Turkey shouldn’t have to forsake bedrock
convictions — for instance, that there was never any Armenian genocide
— just to please Europe
The Bastard of Istanbul deals with taboos — domestic violence and
incestuous rape — that are rarely discussed in this conservative,
predominantly Muslim country.
But it is what her Armenian-American characters say that has landed
Shafak in court.
Shafak’s book has sold 60,000 copies, a best seller by Turkish
standards, and will appear in English next year.