That and the growing popularity of Turkey as a holiday destination made readers more curious.  The number of Turkish authors being translated into English went from 11 in the last decade of the last century to 41 in the first decade of this one, and 25 in the last three years alone.

In the past year, more than 20 Turkish writers have come to this island to launch or speak about their work. Most came under the auspices of the British Council, working in conjunction with the Turkish Ministry of Culture, the London Book Fair, English PEN, and other dedicated partners. There were more than 30 events in 15 venues across 4 UK cities. Most were about literature, not politics, though politics is never far away in the lives and works of Turkish writers. For those who wished to engage more deeply with such questions, there was a roundtable on freedom of expression hosted by English PEN at which a diverse group of Turkish novelists, poets, publishers, and journalists met an equally diverse group of London-based novelists, lawyers, and activists.

At this and the many other events I attended, either as a participant or a member of a standing-room only audience, there was one question that kept coming back. Why has it taken the English-speaking world so long to notice Turkey? There is, of course, no single answer. You might say that – especially since the end of the Second World War – it has been very hard to read. Like many of the new nations in the Cold War era, it was economically weak, but it never had to liberate itself from an empire. Before becoming a republic, it was an empire. It was also, officially, a democracy, but with a military that was not shy to step in and shut it down whenever it deemed necessary. It was staunchly anti-Communist, and staunchly authoritarian. It is still authoritarian, except that now the enforcers are not secularists but Islamists.

In Turkey today, as in Turkey yesterday, you pick up a pen at your own risk. Though the tradition of speaking truth to power is old and rich, the conversation was until very recently constrained, even kettled. The penal code is still full of laws that can send writers to prison. The new anti-terror laws and the expanding definitions of terrorism now allow for the indefinite detention of writers viewed as dangerous. But that has not silenced Turkey’s dissenting writers, who continue to speak out for democratic change with ever greater ingenuity, imagination, and force.

During the recent Gezi protests, the Turkish mainstream media stayed at home. The media moguls were too deeply involved in the ruling party’s development deals to risk angering an increasingly autocratic prime minister. It was the social media that kept the protesters in touch, and (thanks to the efforts of a spontaneous army of Twitter translators) it connected them with the outside world as never before.

So today we are publishing an e-book containing our first collection of dispatches, commissioned and posted by PEN Atlas over the past year. Some come from writers who have already seen their books published in English; some are appearing in English for the first time. Some have been translated; some were composed in English. Quite a few were written from the heat of the Gezi protests; others offer quiet reflections, mining the past, or imagining the future. All are open letters, inviting us to write back.

From Mario Levi and Hakan Gunday to Kaya Genc and Ayfer Tunc, this collection offers many riches and insights and invites you to read further.

About the author
Maureen Freely is the author of seven novels (Mother’s Helper, The Life of the Party, The Stork Club, Under the Vulcania, The Other Rebecca, Enlightenment and – most recently – Sailing through Byzantium) as well as three works of non-fiction (Pandora’s Clock, What About Us? An Open Letter to the Mothers Feminism Forgot, and The Parent Trap). The translator of five books by the Turkish Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk (Snow, The Black Book, Istanbul: Memories of a City, Other Colours and The Museum of Innocence), she is active in various campaigns to champion free expression. She also works with campaigns aiming to promote world literature in English translation. She has been a regular contributor to the Guardian, the Observer, the Independent and the Sunday Times for two decades, writing on feminism, family and social policy, Turkish culture and politics, and contemporary writing.

The post PEN Atlas: literary dispatches from Turkey appeared first on English PEN.

Every life has a ‘text’, and every ‘text’ a life hiding in the dark somewhere, awaiting discovery… The choice of vantage point is, in theory, your privilege, the vantage point from which to observe the city you live in, the city you want to make sense of, and rebuild in your own way. What are you after? What do you expect to hear there, from whom, and how? Are you the victim of some voluntary captivity, hoping for deliverance through writing, or a warrior in search of his own language? There are places that you will never reach since that city will always follow you; do you know what they are?

My ‘text’ on Istanbul insisted I ask similar questions. At the top of Galata Tower where I climbed one evening, I, who have chased many a story, or who styled himself as such, heard other people’s questions. The sun was setting. A crystal clear autumn day was about to end. More houses and streets than I could count fanned out before my eyes. Numerous houses shielding their heritage and speaking of the passage of time. Old streets trying to keep up with the changes… My city reminded me of its nature once more, the city I owed my own existence to. My ears were ringing and a familiar dizziness came over me. These sounds could have been proclaiming countless stories my life would never suffice to tell. So many civilisations, cultures, languages and faiths had left their marks. But these stones and windows stay silent to those who neither know how to listen, nor feel the need to. Like so many people… But the luxury of not hearing is denied to the twenty-first century storyteller, if anything, hearing more and more is inevitable. These were familiar sounds, and more: these were sounds I would always hear. No matter how irresistible the occasional need to plug my ears, unable to stomach the things I was hearing. Not that I ever wanted to, or could: this, you see, was the only way I could exist for the sake of my ‘text’ in a city such as this one. By relating, and by trying to understand… Just like Scheherazade, just so I could survive. That’s why I trod those streets, and others too, for so many years.

I know an array of secrets silver Istanbul’s mirrors on the reverse. How else can I possibly explain its resolve to be heard whenever I journey to other tongues?

About the Author
Born in 1957, Mario Levi graduated from the Istanbul University Faculty of Literature in 1980 with a degree in French language and literature. In addition to being a writer, Levi has worked as a French teacher, an importer, a journalist, a radio programmer, and a copywriter. He currently  lectures in Yeditepe University, and is a board member of English PEN’s sister centre, PEN Turkey.
www.mariolevi.com.tr | Twitter @mariolevi_

About the Translator
Feyza Howell works as a literary translator as well as serving English PEN as assessor and a number of public agencies as interpreter. She has been translating fiction and commercial texts for many years as well as writing copy and non-fiction, including Waste by Hakan Günday and her translation of Madame Atatürk by İpek Çalışlar is due for publication by Saqi in the autumn.

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