TURKEY TO STAR AT BOOK FAIR DESPITE WRITERS’ ROWS
By Jeffrey Goldfarb
Reuters, UK
Oct 5 2006
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Turkey will be the featured country at the
Frankfurt Book Fair in 2008, a choice that could invite controversy
after two recent court cases raised questions about freedom of
expression in the European Union candidate.
The fair could stir up even more debate as it courts China as a
potential guest for 2009, with fair officials suggesting that the
sensitive topics of Taiwan and Tibet would have to be part of the
programme’s focus in such an eventuality.
Turkish publishers consider the honour a chance to shift the spotlight
from the 2006 court cases to its cultural heritage and the 20,000
books published each year in the country.
"We hope this transition phase will be faster and maybe by 2008,
we will not talk about these issues any more," said Hayati Bayrak,
president of the Turkish publishers association, in an interview on
Thursday translated by a deputy, Mustafa Dogru.
"We are in favour of freedom of expression," Bayrak added. "Those
authors who were in court, you can find their books and their pictures
here at our stand now."
A judge last month cleared prominent novelist Elif Shafak of insulting
Turkish identity in a passage from her book about the massacres of
Armenians during Ottoman rule.
She had faced up to three years in jail if convicted for comments
made in her novel "The Bastard of Istanbul".
Earlier in the year Turkey’s most famous novelist Orhan Pamuk also
went on trial for insulting "Turkishness" after he told a Swiss
newspaper that nobody in Turkey dared mention the Armenian slaughter.
The case was dropped on a technicality.
Turkey denies claims that 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a
systematic "genocide" in World War One. But it is under pressure
from the European Union to change an article in the penal code that
forbids insulting the Turkish identity.
"I have seen Turkey’s booth this year, and there are some historical
falsifications in the books they published, but we don’t mind that
they will be the honoured guest because the historical truths will
be proved," said Vahram Avagyan, head of publicity for Zangak, one
of Armenia’s largest publishers.
When asked if the book fair wanted to send a signal to Turkey about
freedom of speech, Juergen Boos, the fair’s director, said: "Yes,
of course."
Pamuk welcomed what he hoped would be a fresh wave of attention from
the global publishing community.
"After so many years of Turkey attending the Frankfurt Book Fair it
is very good news, because Turkish literature is trying, with hesitant
steps, to walk in the international arena," he told Reuters.
(Additional reporting by Osman Senkul in Ankara and Joern Poltz
in Frankfurt)