The Bastard of Istanbul is the sixth novel and the second one written directly in English by Elif Shafak. She is loved as much as her co-national Orhan Pamuk, the famous Turkish writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. They have two more things in common: they have been accused of "insulting Turkishness" and both were pardoned with excuses from lack of incriminatory proof. The reason for her being prosecuted is this very book, The Bastard of Istanbul, published in 2006, the … [Read more...]
A few facts about Turkey and Turkish politics – part two
In the first part of this topic, you were briefed of Turks origins as people and The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire of which I'm going to finish here. After the Young Turks revolution and the second Constitutional Era, in the Empire major reforming attitudes were shown, the Cretans declared union with Greece, the Albanians declared the Latin Alphabet as the standard script and the Italians declared war. It happened in 1919. Seeing how easy it was, the Balkan League attacked … [Read more...]