Catching up on the Cultural Front

Compared to the Istanbul Book Fair, the event in Diyarbakir is a relatively small affair. Yet, the symbolic impact is that much greater. The book fair brings a variety of publishing houses – Turkish and Kurdish, left-wing and religious – all under one roof. It also provides the city with the economic and intellectual exchange that it sorely need. Sonja Galler reports

Visitors at the Diyarbakir book fair (photo: Moran Ezdin)
"A great thirst to freely discover new paths and possibilities": visitors at the Diyarbakir book fair

​​Ararat Sekeryan, a student from Istanbul and the youngest employee of the Armenian Aras Publishing House, is here on his first visit to the southeast of Turkey. "A German friend of mine has raved on and on about this city. Now I am here for the first time and I have to say that it is truly an impressive place."

"We thought we might have good sales with our books by the author Migirdic Magosyan, who writes on his childhood in the former Armenian quarter of Diyarbakir," says Sekeryan. "We didn't expect, though, to have to order an extra shipment of books from Istanbul already by Friday night."

Astonishment resonates in Sekeryan's voice, and this amazement is typical. Diyarbakir is very far away, and not only from the point of view of Europe. Very few Turks from the west of the country ever consider making such a trip to the east. The predominant image of the region is that of a barren landscape characterized by political conflict and underdevelopment. Most think that it is just better to stay away.

The fair as a gigantic bookstore

Yet, here is the book fair in Diyarbakir – taking place for the very first time. A hundred and twenty five exhibitors have unpacked their boxes full of books in the halls of the Tüyap exhibition centre, which until now featured cars and agricultural machinery.

photo: Moran Ezdin
An extra shipment of books from Istanbul: the Armenian author Migirdic Magosyan signing copies of his book on his childhood in the former Armenian quarter of Diyarbakir

​​In addition to the established publishers in Turkey such as Yapi Kredi, Türk Is Bankasi, and Can & Dogan, which offer readers a wide variety of internationally acclaimed literature ranging from Orhan Pamuk, Sabahattin Ali, Elif Shafak, and Franz Kafka to Paulo Coelho, a number of left-wing alternative, Kurdish, and religious publishers are also represented at the book fair.

For an entire week, 88,763 visitors from Diyarbakir and the surrounding area used the opportunity to survey the Turkish-Kurdish publishing landscape and to generously stock up on books. The book fair in Diyarbakir, like all Turkish book fairs, is primarily geared towards direct sales. Books could be purchased with a discount of up to fifty percent. This reflects the fact that book fairs are a crucial sales instrument for Turkish publishers, which, in comparison to their European counterparts, publish smaller print runs and sell far fewer books.

Politicized readership

The shopping bags of fair visitors are full of language and grammar books, works of poetry, which are highly valued in a region noted for the oral transmission of its literature, and the occasional novel. Sales are also brisk for many standard works on the history of European politics, sociology, and philosophy. Publishing houses, in particular, confirm that readers from this region have a greater interest in sociological and political issues than elsewhere in the country.

photo: Moran Ezdin
Providing a voice to the emotional world of a young, conservative religious generation: the author Iskender Pala

​​"It is striking how totally different readers here are from those in Istanbul. People in Istanbul pursue extremely varied interests and that is reflected in their book purchases. Here, people seem to be searching in books for political solutions and new ways to live their own lives," says Gazi Bertan from the tiny Kaos Publishers Istanbul. For instance, the anarchist-utopian work "Bolo'bolo" by a Swiss author named "P.M." has sold remarkably well in Diyarbakir, remarks Bertan.

"It has taken Turkey a long time to recover from the restrictive policies imposed after the 1980 military putsch. Now there is a great thirst to freely discover new paths and possibilities. Perhaps this is why many political and religious books are so popular, because they were unavailable for so long," explains a book dealer.

The crowd in front of the autograph table of the author Iskender Pala, a professor of Turkish Language and Classical Literature as well as a writer of mystical Islamic love stories, seems to bear witness to this theory. The author provides a voice to the emotional world of a young, conservative religious generation, which for the first time is consciously demanding a path that somehow includes both their traditional faith and participation in modern life. It is mainly young women in headscarves that are patiently waiting for an autograph and a few words with the author.

Kurdish home game

Other notable players at the event in Diyarbakir are Kurdish publishing houses such as Avesta, Lis, Nubihar, and Belki. To a certain degree, the fair is somewhat of a home game. Small Kurdish publishers often can't afford a stand at the large book fairs in Istanbul. Here in the overwhelmingly Kurdish populated east of the country, if they aren't playing the role of host, then they are certainly the favourites of the public.

"In addition to textbooks on the Kurdish language, people here primarily buy the classics, such as poetry by Melaye Ciziri or epic poems by Ehmede Xani. Although these books are almost 500 years old, they are new for most Kurds. They are only now beginning to become familiar with their own literature," says a dealer from the religiously oriented Nubihar Publishing House.

photo: Moran Ezdin
"Reading is the Future": Diyarbakir's Mayor Osman Baydemir, distributing Kurdish language children's books at the city administration stand

​​An amused public surround the next stand, at which the Diyarbakir Kurdish Institute is selling t-shirts featuring wordplay in Kurdish in an attempt to increase the popularity of the Kurdish language. Exciting publishing houses such as Avesta, Belki, and Lis offer a whole range of books by young authors who write in Kurdish.

The event provides Kurdish publishers with the opportunity to represent themselves alongside the larger publishing houses as well as to establish tentative business relations on the basis of translation licenses (from Turkish to Kurdish and the other way around). This is an important step towards normality. The Turkish publishing house Ithaki is a prime example. It has already translated into Turkish many works by Mehmed Uzun, the grand seigneur of Kurdish literature.

A secondary indication of this normalization process is the fact that for the first time Turkish language publishers at the book fair have attempted to attract a Kurdish language clientele. For instance, the company idefix.com has presented the first e-book in Kurdish and the Turkish publisher Dogan has a banner written in Kurdish – "Xwendin paseroj e" or "Reading is the Future."

In the early evening, Diyarbakir's busy Mayor Osman Baydemir makes an appearance. He played no small part in making sure that the book fair took place here this year. At the Aras Publishing House stand, he is presented with a beautiful volume on Armenian silversmithing. He then distributes Kurdish language children's books at the city administration stand.

While the cameras all focus on the mayor, in the background, student book fair hostesses hurry through the aisles and one or another book ends up in the pockets of bibliophile thieves. It's business as usual, even here in Diyarbakir.

Sonja Galler

© Qantara.de 2010

Translated from the German by John Bergeron

Editor: Lewis Gropp/Qantara.de

Qantara.de

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