Turkish novel survives a charge of 'denigrating national identity'
"THE BASTARD OF ISTANBUL" - By Elif Shafak - Viking ($24.95)
By Patricia Corrigan
A
35-year-old Turkish novelist, resting with her newborn baby, learns that a
court in Istanbul has acquitted her of insulting the Turkish national
identity. That's not the plot of Elif Shafak's second novel written in English, but a real-life consequence of the book, "The Bastard of Istanbul." The charges were brought under Article 301 of Turkey's penal code, which carries up to three years in jail for "denigrating Turkish national identity." The government's case was based on comments made by characters in the novel about the mass killings of Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire in 1915.
Riot police were called to quash an uproar outside the courthouse over the verdict last September, but Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the BBC that he welcomed the acquittal. He also indicated that the government would consider amending Article 301, which has been used to intimidate dozens of writers, including Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.
If you don't care for reality with your fiction, rest assured that "The Bastard of Istanbul" is more than a news topic. The novel, a best-seller in Turkey, is a fast-paced story of love, loss and coincidence. Shafak writes powerfully of war (cultural and familial), of peace and of the meaning of moral fortitude. She possesses a steady hand when it comes to creating strong female characters, and her vivid descriptions of the charms of Istanbul serve to lure the traveler better than any pitch from a tour company.
Don't be put off by the first chapter, which stretches the stereotype of the gorgeous, tough-talking heroine, this one with a shiny nose ring. The seemingly exaggerated effort to hold the reader's attention at the beginning quickly leads to solid writing enhanced with rich detail. Besides, Zehila Kazanci has an important story to tell, and Shafak introduces her first for a good reason.
In later chapters, the reader meets the rest of the family — an eccentric lot of independent Turkish women. Keep an eye on Banu Kazanci, presented at first as a zany auntie who has taken up fortune telling. Later, Banu, crazy like the proverbial fox, changes the course of her family's history.
Here, too, are Zehila's rebellious teenage daughter Asya (the child alluded to in the title of the book) and Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian, a young Armenian-American woman whose stepfather is Asya's uncle. Much of the book is the story of the two 19-year-olds and what they learn about themselves — and their families — as they struggle to understand each other's culture while shuttling between the smoke-filled Café Kundera in real time and that establishment's virtual counterpart, the online Café Constantinopolis.
Shafak's characters linger in the mind days after finishing the book, and for that (among other reasons, of course) we are grateful that she is safe at home with her baby and not in jail.
Patricia Corrigan is a retired Post-Dispatch reporter