THE NOVEL BEHIND A TURKISH CONTROVERSY
Robert Siegel, Host
National Public Radio (NPR)
SHOW: All Things Considered 9:00 PM EST
February 13, 2007 Tuesday
Last year, a Turkish court charged novelist Elif Shafak with
denigrating Turkishness. The reason, a remark about the Armenian
genocide made by one of the characters in her novel "The Bastard of
Istanbul." Eventually, the charges were dropped.
Now, the novel is about to come out in an English language version
written by the author herself.
Here’s our reviewer Alan Cheuse.
ALAN CHEUSE: The story straddles two worlds, that of modern Istanbul
and contemporary America, and two families and two visions of history
and reality. In Istanbul, we meet the Kazanci clan. This family is
made up almost completely of women, including a bunch of sisters,
a grandmother, Asya, the bastard of the book’s title, who’s the
illegitimate child of one of the sisters, and an unnamed and until
almost the novel’s end unknown father.
In Tucson resides the beautiful Armanoush, otherwise known as Aimee,
and her American mother whose current husband is a Turkish engineer
who happens to be the last surviving male of the Kazanci clan.
Aimee’s father is an Armenian man whose family escaped the Turkish
genocide against the country’s Armenian Christian citizens and now
lives in San Francisco. It’s Aimee’s father who in a conversation
refers to that national violence whose mention recently got this book
called into a Turkish court.
But it is as much family history as national history that drives
this vital and entertaining novel with powerful and idiosyncratic
characters and vibrant language that drives the characters. The book
overflows with hilarity and anger, with anguish and redemption. Food
and food and more food gets heaped up on the Kazanci table, as does
love and hope and despair and dreams and life, as well.
One of the sisters finds her truth in Tarot cards and communicates
with a couple of genies who live on her shoulders, while another,
runs a successful tattoo parlor. And, Asya, the bastard, finds
affection amidst the group of westernize intellectuals at an Istanbul
cafe called the Kondura(ph). And for young and beautiful and questing
Aimee, she finds herself addicted to novels.
Novels were dangerous we hear. Before you knew it, you could be so
carried away that you could lose touch with reality. That’s what
happened to me as soon as I began reading this deep and delightful
novel. It carried me away, and reality was a little different when
I returned.
SIEGEL: The book is "The Bastard of Istanbul" by Elif Shafak. Our
reviewer, Alan Cheuse, teaches writing at George Mason University in
Fairfax, Virginia.