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The article below was published on the 24th of January in Today's Zaman
"Tales from ‘expat harem’ opens window on Turkey
For many in the West and elsewhere, Turkey remains an enigma. An internationally acclaimed nonfiction anthology “Tales From the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey†opens a window on the country as experienced by 32 expatriate women from seven nations -- revealing the inner workings of this complex land and people and the often resulting clash with Western ideas and traditions.
Recommended to millions of travelers worldwide by National Geographic Traveler magazine, the collection spans the entire country and four decades in tales from contributors across the world. The storytellers came here for a myriad of reasons -- as women pursuing studies or work, a belief, a love, an adventure. Whether an archaeologist at Troy, a Christian missionary in Istanbul, a Peace Corps volunteer in Erzurum, a journalist on the Iraqi border or a broken-hearted girl in Bursa, each felt an affinity for the country and its people.
Elif Şafak, the award-winning Turkish novelist (â€The Saint of Incipient Insanities,†2004) and feminism and Near Eastern studies scholar at the University of Arizona, has written the foreword to the Turkish language edition, “Türkçe Sevmek.†Şafak describes the collection as “thought-provoking†and notes that “the book successfully transcends the cultural stereotypes so deeply embedded in perceptions of the Eastern harem while probing the wonderfully intricate relation between the limitlessness of female venture and the limitlessness of portable homelands.â€
Editors Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Gökmen sat down to discuss this release and explained how they came up with the idea of writing this book, why they chose this title and how they found the contributors. Ashman, who is married to a Turk and has lived in Istanbul for three years, is best known as a cultural essayist whose work has appeared worldwide. Gökmen, also married to a Turk, is a 12-year resident of Turkey and the development director at Istanbul International Community School.
First I have to ask, what made you select such a provocative title?
Ashman: We wanted to reclaim the concept of the Eastern harem -- long the subject of erroneous Western stereotype, like Turkey itself. Much like the many imported brides of the Ottoman sultans, we consider our writers inextricably wedded to Turkish culture, embedded in it, though forever foreign.
Gökmen: Our expat harem is conjured by the shared circumstances of being foreign-born and female in a land rich in harem tradition. The metaphor is quite apt when you consider how confined expatriate women here can be, particularly those newly arrived. Perhaps they aren’t constricted by physical walls of the harem, but the virtual walls are often there, formed by the initial lack of Turkish language skills, undeveloped understanding of the culture or even the staunch ethnocentricities that some of us clung to like security blankets when we first arrived. The title may be willfully anachronistic, but these women have modern lives and modern concerns -- pursuing families, businesses, buying properties and becoming Turkish citizens.
In what way does this book differ from travel memoirs?
Gökmen: We feel that this anthology is part of an emerging worldwide genre that should be called “expatriate literature†-- writing about life from outside one’s homeland does not necessarily mean that one is writing from a state of travel. This is not a collection of travel stories. These women are coping with life in a foreign culture.
Ashman: Our narrators demonstrate the evolutions Turkish culture has shepherded in their lives: assimilation into friendship, neighborhood, wifehood and motherhood. Much weightier real-life issues than often tackled in travel themes!
Gökmen: Expatriate literature is a hugely resonant genre in this age where so many people are globally mobile and must repeatedly re-establish themselves in the contexts of new countries and new cultures. We are not tourists here, and neither are our contributors. We are all people who need meaningful access to our new surroundings.
How did you find the contributors?
Gökmen: In an international-women’s writing group in Istanbul, we realized we were all writing about our Turkish experiences. Collected, they might begin to piece together the puzzle of Turkey. So we called for submissions through expatriate groups, writing groups, women’s groups, and foreign groups associated with Turkey, like the Peace Corps alumni (â€Arkadaşlarâ€).
Ashman: We heard from over 100 people from the worldwide diaspora of foreign women whose lives have been touched by Turkey. We worked with many, most of them not professional writers, to fashion a personal tale that revealed as much about the woman and her own culture as the country she uncovered.
Gökmen: Because Turkey has such an emotional hold on so many expats, we all tend to have a proprietary feeling about how the country is portrayed, and that meant a lot of very strong feelings. Most were overwhelmingly positive, but naturally some were also negative.
Ashman: We only asked that the story be honest and balanced. We looked for a certain depth of understanding about both the Turkish culture and the writer’s own cultural assumptions. We asked, “What did this experience teach you about Turkey, and what did it show you about yourself?†This was difficult for some writers, who were not comfortable with revealing themselves. In the end, we couldn’t include a tale if the writer wasn’t able to face her own foibles.
Gökmen: You will see in the book people candidly experiencing crises -- of conscience, religion or physicality. It is in the resolution of the crisis that they come to understand their own role in the conflict of cultures.
Tomorrow: Has the book changed preconceived ideas about Turkey?"
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“Tales From the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey†(Doğan Kitap 2005 in Turkey, Seal Press 2006 in North America). Available from all major bookstores and online sites. For more information on the book go to www.expatharem.com.
24.01.2007
KATHY HAMILTON İSTANBUL
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