Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy

Temelkuran, a celebrated Turkish journalist who lost her job for criticizing the Erdog˘an regime, profiles her tumultuous homeland, elucidating the distinct problems it faces as a nation straddling continents and struggling to understand, never mind resolve, its internal contradictions. She describes a country where the conservative AKP (Justice and Development Party) has “gained control of the implementation of law, thus completely demolishing all stabilizing mechanisms, political or judicial.” Control over the most intimate aspects of personal identity has long been a hallmark of Turkish politics, and through language reforms Turkish “has been maimed to make sure the Kurdish could not speak Kurdish, the left could not speak of ideology, women could not fight for their rights, workers could not resist, and much more.” Many of the trends and events Temelkuran recounts will be completely unfamiliar to much of her audience, a tension she addresses: “I chose to write this book as though I were talking to neither a foreigner nor a fellow citizen but to a good friend who is far away.” Through passionate and poetic prose, Temelkuran holds a mirror to Turkey and a people “forced to live with such complicated psyches.” (Oct.)