Turks Try Another Writer / Novel Tell Truth about Africa

Another Turkish Writer on Trial
“’Nobody was expecting this,’ says bestselling Turkish novelist Elif Shafak. A decision in Istanbul’s seventh high criminal court earlier this month reopened her prosecution on charges of ‘insulting Turkishness.’ She faces a maximum jail term of three years if convicted.” That’s the skinny from Richard Lea in the Guardian.The novelist Orhan Pamuk, author of Snow, recently faced similar charges in Turkish courts but outraged about the trial from member countries in the European Union encouraged the Turkish government, which is seeking member in the union, to drop the case. One can hope that Shafak fairs as well, although one wonders since she is a woman.

Novels Tell More than News
Maya Jaggi explains how fiction tells more truths about Africa than any new report. She focuses heavily on The Last Trip, a short story by Sefi Atta, a Nigerian. It’s a story about a woman who swallows 127 balloons of heroin before she boards a flight to London.