Frankfurter Buchmesse: Pearls from the Bosporus (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)

Frankfurter Book Fair:
Pearls from the Bosporus (Satis Shroff)

What happens when a TV moderator organises a show and prizes are awarded to Veronica Ferres 43 (best actress), Misel Maticevic 38 (best actor), ‘Contergan’ (best film) and the best show ‘Germany sucht den Superstar?’ An award show is in itself a comedy and slapstick affair but Thomas Gottschalk made a mistake this time. You can’t award stars and starlets, pruducers and directors in the same way you that you award a literary heavy-weight like Marcel Reich-Ranicki 88, the Literary Pope of the German speaking world. The octogenarian refused the prize for his well-known ‘Das Literarische Quartett.’ Reich-Ranicki went on record as saying: “I’ve seen so much stupidity this evening and I don’t believe that I belong to them,” thereby distancing himself from the jolly superficial crowd at the TV show. Gottschalk couldn’t believe his ears but was his old self, as usual, imitating Reich-Ranicki and trying hard not to lose his face, and making attempts to repair the damage to his show. Serious German literature and frivolous entertainment are indeed strange bedfellows.

I’m off to the Frankfurter Book Fair (October 15-19,2008) and this year’s host country is Turkey, which is an excellent choice because Turkey lies between the Orient and the Occident, and there are some pearls of contemporary literature from this nation on the Bosporus. The Turkish poets and writers will be introducing 200 new works and translations to demonstrate the fascinating and colourful spectrum of a culture which lies between Europe and Asia. Some 350 Turkish writers and poets are expected to turn up at the Main metropolis.

Since Islam has been in the world’s headlines since a long time, Turkey has a special role to play as a modern Islamic country, and literature from the Bosorus has received a great deal of attention, especially in the German speaking world: Germany, Austria, Switzerland and South Tyrole. A lot of German publishing houses have Turkish literature in their programs and catalogues. Kiepenheuer & Witsch have published Feridun Zaimoglu and Emine Sevgi, dtv (German pocket book) has brought out Osman Engin’s books, the Swiss Unionsverlag has printed Yesar Kemal and Esmahan Aykol (crime fiction).

Europe has so many migrants from Turkey and the Germans want to understand the mentality of the Turks and wish to present a enuine picture of life in Turkey today. To this end, Germany’s Robert Bosch Stiftung and a few Turkologists from Freiburg (Erika Glassen and Jens Peter laut) and the Swiss Unionsverlag have cooperated and created a ‘Turkish Library’ comrising 20 volumes of not yet translated writings and lyrics from the past century to our times. What a treasure for readers around the world.

The fact that two Turkish authors were awarded the German Peace Prize, Yasar Kemal (1997) and Orhan amuk (2005) gave Turkish literature the necessary boost that it needed. And when the latter received the coveted Nobel Prize for Literature a year later, it was the most wonderful thing for writers and poets from the Bosporus.

Orhan Pamuk has brought out a new novel with the title : The Museum of Innocence. The German edition bears the title ‘Das Museum der Unschuld’ published by Hauser (500 pages). Pamuk tells us the story of his protagonist Kemal, who falls in love but is engaged with someone else. Since he cannot forget his first love, he steals everyday objects from her house. And these stolen objects are the exponates of his museum. The novel is timed in the seventies in the town on the Bosporus. Even though the people look very westernised and extroverted, the nevel reveals that the Turks still hang on very much to their old traditions and beliefs, especially when it comes to behavioural patterns between the sexes. At the same time, the novel documents a plethora of objects of daily use from the surroundings of the unhappy beloved and it is his way of symbolically setting up a Taj Mahal of Innocence. We know from history that when Mumtaz, the favourite wife of Shah Jehan died, he built for her a memorial of white marmor, which is a symbol and a metaphor for eternal love.

Turkish literature has come of age due to its provincial character and the fact that it is different in comparison to German literature, and now it belongs to the world stage. Pamuk’s favourite Turkish author is Tanpinar who died in 1960 and he was the author’s hero. Tanpinar was at home with literary authors like Proust and Gide, as well as the Ottoman culture. Pamuk wrote about him in his ‘Istanbul’ book. Ahmet H. Tanpinar’s ‘Das Uhrenstellinstitut’ was also published by Hanser (432 pages, 24,90 euros). Whenever Ohran Pamuk had private or political problems, he just wrote on his cherished work: The Museum of Innocence, which gave him solace and protection. Perhaps that’s the reason it’s 600 pages thick. Surely a good buy for the reader seeking the same quantum of solace and protection from the political and psychic turmoil of our daily lives. Asked about Istanbul’s poetic places, he mentions: Bosporus, Taksim Place, Beyoglu and the Golden Horn.

Another man-of-letters from Turkey is Yasar Kemal, who was born in 1923 in a south Anatolian hamlet. His father was a rich landlord who turned poor later. Small Yasar was impressed by the poems, epics of the wandering minstrels and folk-singers of his country. After school he worked as a shepherd, drove a tractor, worked as a cobbler and then tried his hand as a street-writer to make both ends meet. And that was the beginning of a great career as a writer. His novel ‘Mehmed, my Falcon’ (1955) made him the most-read writer of Turkey. He lives and works in Istanbul.