At PEN Atlas Ayfer Tunç offers an interesting overview -- without the name-dropping ! -- of literature and the literary scene in Turkey, in Literature rises in the East.
Among the sad (but entirely too believable) observations:
Among the sad (but entirely too believable) observations:
Western publishers sit up and pay attention if you write novels which deal in the Ottoman histories and histrionics that appeal so much to the Western reader. They want stories of abject penury: about lives ruined under the weight of customs and traditions, about the unbreachable chasm between Muslim and Western lifestyles, and tales of ethnic strife. The doors open all too swiftly if you're telling a tale of damsels in the distress of being Muslim -- or alternatively about their pains on adopting a Western lifestyle.See also the Index of Turkish Literature under Review at the complete review.