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20 Werken 338 Leden 6 Besprekingen

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Ece Temelkuran is one of Turkey's best-known authors and political Commentators. She was sacked from the Milliyet newspaper alter criticising the Turkish government.

Bevat de naam: ece temelkuran

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What does it mean when a highly political journalist probes the Armenian Diaspora for reaction to Turkey's intransigence on acknowledging culpability for a century old genocide? And that journalist is Turkish, and a woman. Ece Temulkuran wrote several of the stories in this book before her friend and mentor Hrant Dinck, an Armenian newspaper editor, was cold-bloodedly murdered in a Turkish street in 2007 largely for his attempts to open the dialogue between Turks and Armenians on this very issue. She carries out her friend's suggestion to talk to Diaspora Armenians. Find out what they feel. For the survivors there is guilt, there is rage, and most importantly, there is the sense that their home has been taken away from them. Modern day Armenia is much like other independent states that fell out of the collapse of the Soviet Union: poor, corrupt, isolated. But this is not the home of which she speaks. It was the Armenians of Turkey who were butchered, shot, and gassed. So it is Turkey itself that is the lost homeland. This was new to me. Turkish Armenians aren't a race. Nor a separate religion. They got caught in the squeeze leading up to WWI between the dying Ottoman Empire and the dying Russian Empire. Turkish leaders emptied the jails of its worst criminals and set them on the suspect Armenian population with predictable results. Ultra-nationalist segments of Turkish society keep any hope of a reconciliation with its past off the agenda in Turkey. And its quasi fascist government suppresses dissent,… (meer)
 
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MylesKesten | Jan 23, 2024 |
144/2020. This is a book whose own internal meta-description of itself is that it was written on toilet seat covers stolen from a luxury yacht owned by a cocaine-smuggling Russian oligarch.

This is a story that wanted to grow up to be Scheherazade's retelling of Satanic Verses set during the Arab Spring but instead realised it's a USian self-help Find Your Inner Goddess manual grafted onto a high budget but low grade Egyptian thriller, a novel which has chosen to hide under an unnecessary 500+ page chador of words when it could have communicated more effectively in under 400 pages without the excess baggage.

Unfortunately there are also issues with this translation that detract from Ece Temelkuran's original Turkish text. As an English reader I can't guess what's missing but even I can see obvious problems with a translator who doesn't write English well enough to know the difference between his "honing in" and the standard "homing in", or his choice of "yellow wig" instead of "blonde wig", or his "bee" for what is obviously a "wasp", or the fact a "dark-skinned" character turns "white" in shock instead of "pale", etc. The translator, Alexander Dawe, didn't even care enough to google the title of a famous film so he laughably translates Little Shop of Horrors as "Little Shop of Fears".

There are passages worth reading in this novel but not enough to justify 500 pages of my time.

Quote

"When he puts his hands on his hips you see that spoiled behaviour particular to Middle Eastern men that can be enticing to watch but only causes pain if you actually love the man. Oh, how he is so very pleased with himself. He sees himself as a gift to the world. Ah! He deserves it all. So you see if you are loved enough you turn out like this. It was like every part of his body was alluring in its own way and with every movement he was reminded of the fact. Who would be the lucky girl? It seemed like he was lazily mulling it over. Or would he simply deign to grace someone with his presence? He's rubbing his belly and the girls are swooning. Telling arrogant jokes, he scratches his beard. And the girls are swooning. He hooks one finger in his back pocket like a tough guy. And the girls are swooning. Nothing but smiles all around. He is generating an overwhelming lust, as if he isn't aware of it. He knows he will be loved all his life and never abandoned. There will always be someone waiting for him, no one will ever try his limits. He'll always be forgiven. And if he is ever asked for an ounce of love he'll get terribly bored and leave. Then he'll be rewarded by other loving women who think he deserves better."
… (meer)
 
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spiralsheep | 1 andere bespreking | Nov 6, 2020 |
Este libro arranca con aviones de combate sobrevolando Estambul, con bombas y disparos. Es el 15 de julio de 2016, y la autora contempla a través de la ventana el desarrollo del chapucero golpe de Estado que Erdogan sofocará en pocas horas, y que le proporcionará la excusa para activar un engranaje de detenciones y purgas. ¿Cómo llegó Turquía, que aspiraba a ser europea y moderna, a semejante situación?

Es tan claro como terrible: el populismo y el nacionalismo corroyeron el sistema y derivaron en tentación autoritaria. Pero eso no es exclusivo de Turquía. Lo vemos en Venezuela, y en Hungría, y hay señales de alarma en los Estados Unidos de Trump, en la Gran Bretaña del Brexit y en la Europa de la ultraderecha, que también ha llegado a España.

El volumen se organiza como un manual de instrucciones para llevar a un país de la democracia a la dictadura de facto en siete pasos, que la autora denuncia a modo de antídoto: crear un movimiento, trastocar la lógica y atentar contra el lenguaje, apostar por la posverdad, desmantelar los mecanismos judiciales y políticos, diseñar tu propio modelo de ciudadano, dejar que ese ciudadano se ría del horror y construir tu propio país a tu medida. Un texto imprescindible, que todos debería-mos leer antes de que sea demasiado tarde.
… (meer)
 
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bibliotecayamaguchi | 2 andere besprekingen | Oct 13, 2020 |
The first around 80 pages are great. A road trip story focusing on four women from Middle Eastern countries is not something I come across every day. However, the structure is too messy and there are many unnecessary passages. Overall the book could use a thorough edit. It's sprinkled with some wonderful (and biting) commentary but that doesn't make up for the unwieldy structure.
 
Gemarkeerd
LubicaP | 1 andere bespreking | Mar 21, 2020 |

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Statistieken

Werken
20
Leden
338
Populariteit
#70,454
Waardering
½ 3.5
Besprekingen
6
ISBNs
78
Talen
8

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