In Istanbul, a Writer Awaits Her Day in Court
Buzzle, CA
July 25, 2006
Bestselling novelist Elif Shafak is the latest writer to face trial
for "insulting Turkishness". She tells Richard Lea about her work,
the charges that have been brought against her, and how the Turkish
language has become a battleground. "Nobody was expecting this," says
bestselling Turkish novelist Elif Shafak. A decision in Istanbul’s
seventh high criminal court earlier this month reopened her prosecution
on charges of "insulting Turkishness". She faces a maximum jail term
of three years if convicted.
Shafak joins a roster of more than 60 writers and journalists to
be charged under Article 301 of the Turkish criminal code since
its introduction last year. University professors, journalists and
novelists such as Perihan Magden, Orhan Pamuk and now Shafak have
been charged under legislation drawn so broadly as to criminalise a
wide range of critical opinions. Writers not only face the prospect
of a three-year jail term, but the prosecutions also lay them open to
a campaign of intimidation and harassment waged by rightwing agitators.
"The protests are maybe even more unnerving than the actual trial,"
Shafak told the Guardian today from her home in Istanbul. "Although
their number is very limited they are very aggressive, very
provocative." She describes crowds of protesters slapping and jostling
defendants both inside and outside the courtroom, shouting and throwing
coins and pens.
The charges against Shafak open up new ground. She is not accused of
"insulting Turkishness" because of her campaigning journalism or her
academic work, but for remarks made by a fictional character in her
latest novel, The Bastard of Istanbul.
The novel, which was originally written in English, was published in
a Turkish translation in March 2006 and quickly became a bestseller.
The novel follows four generations of women, moving between Turkey and
the US to tell the story of an Armenian family and the descendants
of a son left behind during the deportations, who converts to Islam
and lives as a Turk. It is perhaps the first Turkish novel to deal
directly with the massacres, atrocities and deportations that decimated
the country’s Armenian population in the last years of Ottoman rule.
Initial reactions to the book were mostly positive, and it went on
to sell over 50,000 copies in less than four months. "I gave numerous
readings, talks and book signings all over Turkey," explains Shafak.
"Although the novel was difficult to digest for some people, in
general the reception has been very positive."
But in June a nationalist lawyer called Kemal Kerincsiz filed a
complaint in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district court against Shafak, her
publisher, Semi Sokmen, and her translator, Asli Bican. Shafak and
her publisher argued during interrogation that the book was a work
of literature and that comments made by fictional characters could
not be used to press charges against an author.
"The interrogation went on for some time and eventually the prosecutor
decided there was no element of insult and he dropped the case,"
says Shafak. But her relief was short-lived. Earlier this month the
same lawyer took the case to a higher court, and ultimately managed
to have the decision overturned. She is now confronted with a long
and daunting legal process. A trial, with all the unwelcome attention
from rightwing groups which that entails, is now inevitable.
It could not have come at a worse moment – she is six months
pregnant. "From now on it is a long legal battle," she says. "The
later stages of the pregnancy will probably coincide with the first
stages of the trial."
Peter Ayrton, founder of Serpent’s Tail, a publisher deeply committed
to literature in translation, was unsurprised by the news of Shafak’s
prosecution. "Most writers that are any good would get into trouble
with the Turkish authorities," he explains. "She’s a very acerbic
voice. Her novels are lively, episodic and innovative. She’s obviously
a feminist, and her work is obviously rooted in contemporary social
conditions in Turkey."
Perhaps the time she spent abroad has given her a different perspective
on Turkish life. She was born in Strasbourg, France in 1971 and spent
her teenage years in Spain, before returning to Turkey to study social
sciences. Four years ago she moved to the US, spending a year at the
University of Michigan before her appointment as assistant professor
at the University of Arizona. She now divides her time between the
US and Turkey, where she has been touring the country to promote her
new novel.
Shafak herself believes the charges were brought for two reasons:
"The overt reason is my latest novel and the critical tone of the
book. The latent reason is deeper and more complex. I have been active
and outspoken on various ‘taboo’ issues, critical of ultranationalism
and all sorts of rigid ideologies, including those coming from the
Kemalist elite, and I have maintained a public presence on minority
rights, especially on the Armenian question. It is a whole package."
Indeed, her fiction has always focused on social issues which Turks
prefer to keep hidden, explains sociologist Muge Gocek, who translated
the first of Shafak’s novels to appear in the UK, The Flea Palace. "But
she does so with humour, with grace, and without ever letting her
characters lose their nobility of spirit," she adds.
The way Shafak deals with Turkey’s past is also unique, continues
Gocek, "both in terms of her knowledge of religious heterodoxy as well
as her use of Ottoman words – these elements add layers of depth to
her novels."
According to Shafak, language has been at the heart of the process of
creating a new nation state, with words of Persian, Arabic or Sufi
origin being purged from the language in an attempt to break away
from the Ottoman past. "In the name of modernisation our language
shrunk tremendously," she says.
"As a writer who happens to be a woman and attached to Islamic, as well
as Jewish and Christian heterodox mysticism, I reject the rationalised,
disenchanted, centralised, Turkified modern language put in front
of me," she declares. "Today in Turkey, language is polarised and
politicised. Depending on the ideological camp you are attached to,
for example Kemalists versus Islamists, you can use either an ‘old’
or a ‘new’ set of words."
It is a choice she refuses to make, filling her writing with both "old"
and "new" words. She says her fiction is like "walking on a pile of
rubble left behind after a catastrophe. I walk slowly so that I can
hear if there is still someone or something breathing underneath. I
listen attentively to the sounds coming from below to see if anyone,
any story or cultural legacy from the past, is still alive under the
rubble. If and when I come across signs of life, I dig deep and pull
it up, above the ground, shake its dust, and put it in my novels so
that it can survive."
Catheryn Kilgarriff, co-director of her British publisher Marion
Boyars, was also drawn to her use of old Turkish language, as well
as her use of allegory and fable. "She’s an extraordinary writer,"
she says, and an extremely exciting prospect for the future. "She’s
only 35 now and she’s already mastered one or two different voices
in her fiction. There’s more to come."
It’s a body of work which is building her a formidable reputation
overseas. "She’s doing astoundingly well," adds Kilgarriff, pointing
out that Shafak’s books have been taken up by the large chains and
offered in three for two promotions – unusual treatment indeed for
literature in translation.
Shafak has been published in Turkey, the US and Britain, though only
two of her six novels are available in the UK at the moment. Since
writing The Flea Palace, which was shortlisted for the Independent
Foreign Fiction prize in 2005, she has begun writing in English –
an act which has been seen by Turkish nationalists as a "cultural
betrayal".
It was a choice motivated more by her passion for language, by the
search for new modes of expression. "There are certain things I’d
rather write in English, certain others I’d rather write in Turkish,"
she explains. "English, to me, is a more mathematical language, it
is the language of precision. It embodies an amazing vocabulary and
if you are looking for the ‘precise word’, it is right out there.
Turkish, to me, is more sentimental, more emotional." English seems
more suited for philosophy, analytical writing or humour, "but if I
am writing on sorrow I’d rather use Turkish."
This is something that nationalists fail to understand, she says. "It
is always us versus them, this or that. Nationalists cannot understand
that one can be multilingual, multicultural, cosmopolitan … without
feeling obliged to make a choice between them once and for all."
It is perhaps this instinct which lies at the heart of the wider
conflicts taking place in contemporary Turkish society. An increasingly
urban Turkey has seen a broad cultural renaissance over the last three
decades, which has been consistently under-reported in the west. Voices
in literature, academia and the arts have begun to examine subjects
which have long been taboo, to raise questions about uncomfortable
issues such as the role of women or the history of Turkey’s Armenian
minority.
But as this cultural resurgence has gained strength it has been met
by a nationalist reaction.
"On the one hand there are the ones who want Turkey to join the EU,
democratise further and become an open society," says Shafak, but
on the other "are the ones who want to keep Turkey as an insular,
xenophobic, nationalistic, enclosed society. And precisely because
things are changing in the opposite direction, the panic and backlash
produced by the latter group is becoming more visible and audible."
There are those who think that the prosecutions of leading writers
under Article 301 are a sign that nothing is changing in Turkey, but
Shafak thinks it is just the opposite: "Article 301 is being used
more and more against critical minds precisely because things have
been changing very rapidly in Turkey. The bigger and deeper the social
transformation, the more visible the discomfort of those who want to
preserve the status quo and the louder the backlash coming from them."
It’s a reaction which has already cast doubt on to Turkey’s accession
into the EU. Earlier this month the European commissioner in charge
of negotiations with Turkey urged the Turkish authorities to amend
Article 301, reminding them that freedom of expression "constitutes
the core of democracy" and is a "key principle" in determining a
state’s eligibility to join the EU.
It is too early to say what effect the trial will have on Shafak. She
is determined that it will not influence her writing. "Next time I
start a novel, I do not want to have qualms, fearing this or that
topic might cause me yet another trouble," she says, adding that
she is "much more daring" in her fiction than in her daily life:
"While I am writing the urge to go on with the story outweighs any
other concern that might cross my mind."
A date for her trial has not yet been fixed. For the moment all she
can do is wait.
The Bastard of Istanbul will be published in the US by Viking/Penguin
in 2007
Elif Shafak’s The Gaze was published in the UK earlier this month by
Marion Boyars at £9.99
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