Also published on Turkish Diary The Qandil Mountains, in Iraqi Kurdistan. We arrived here expecting training camps and PKK fighters all over the place. We find houses, children playing, women who greet us – all we can say in Kurdish is rojbas, have a good day – and serve us rice and chicken, and a […]
Op-Ed: What Israel Can Learn from Turkey
This article was originally published on the blog Turkish Diary. Turkey has recently condemned Israel’s offensive in Gaza. Ankara has even decided to suspend its mediating efforts between Israel and Syria. It would be easy to dismiss such a position as just solidarity with the Muslim brothers and sisters in Gaza. Not that it would […]
Fulya Atacan: “In Turkey the military say the State should not use religion, but they did it first
Black, long hair and an open smile that often turns ironic. I meet Fulya Atacan on a hot summer day, at the beginning of August, in the Cihangir branch of the famous Kaktüs Café. The music is quite loud, and her voice is not, but my dictaphone luckily succeeds in recording it without too much […]
Interview: Palestine as seen by Matt Rees, author of crime novels
What is the right book to read during the celebrations for Israel 60th anniversary? Probably a crime fiction set in Palestine. That is, what Matt Rees’ books are about. Matt Beynon Rees is (or he might prefer to say was) a journalist from Wales who for over a decade wrote stories from the Middle East for […]
Kurdish photos by Italian photographers
Disclaimer: all the images in this post are under copyright and cannot be used, even partially, without the autors’ authorization. The photos the title is about are not mine. Luckily, I’d say. In Diyarbakir, where I was three weeks ago, for the Newroz, I met two interesting Italian photographers, who were working on Kurdish pictures. Here […]
French science fiction authors united against Sarkozy
The idea comes from Alain Damasio, a French science fiction author who won 2007’s Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire. “I got angry during the presidential elections and wondered what I could do to prevent Sarkozy from becoming president”. He missed the target, but he’s quite satisfied at succeeding in putting together a few dozens authors who […]