Sema Kaygusuz and Nicholas Glastonbury discuss shame, representation and the Turkish language.
Read More
If This is a Lament
Exclusive preview of the title poem, ‘If this is a lament’, from a new chapbook of work by Turkish poet Bejan Matur, translated by Jen Hadfield and Canan Marasligil.
Read MoreThe Greatest Turkish Novel?
Kaya Genç discusses the cultural and literary legacy of Hamdi Tanpınar whose 1961 novel ‘The Time Regulation Institute’ was published this year as a Penguin Classic.
Read MoreLiving by the pen
What is the cost of going on the payroll for a writer in Turkey?
Read MoreA literature in search of its language
Ciwanmerd Kulek charts the ongoing struggle for the Kurdish language, and whether being a language that is now more written than spoken threatens it in new and troubling ways
Read MoreA wind blows from Gezi Park
This week PEN Atlas returns to Turkey for an update on Gezi Park. Müge İplikçi reflects on recent events and draws parallels between the stifling of Gezi Park activists and the ongoing stifling of Turkish writers, who work in a system in which profit is the only validation.
Read MoreOn the sublimation of authority
Hakan Günday unpacks the notion of authority and censorship, and considers its effects on civilians
Read MoreThe Walnut Tree of Gezi Park
Following recent events, PEN Atlas is running an additional dispatch this week from Turkey. Kaya Genç writes for us about Nâzım Hikmet Ran, whose poem ‘The Walnut Tree’ has taken on both a prophetic turn and an inspirational one in light of Gezi Park
Read MoreLiterature rises in the East
Ayfer Tunç writes for PEN Atlas ab0ut the importance of looking past the clichés so that Turkish literature is seen in the context of World Literature. This is the first in a series of reports from Turkey, a focus both for London Book Fair, and for English PEN.
Read More