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Zusatztext In 2017, Turkish voters narrowly approved a referendum championed by Erdogan to transform the country from a parliamentary to a presidential system. The plebiscite came less than a year after an attempted coup and during a state of emergency that would continue until mid-2018. Voters were told that a strong executive would bring Turkey security and stability. But many also feared the restrictions that stability might bring. Kaya Genc, a Turkish novelist, translator, and journalist, captures the uncertainty of 2017 in The Lion and the Nightingale: A Journey Through Modern Turkey . He presents nearly a dozen profiles of "nightingales" - artists, actors, and writers, including himself--who want to experience the beauty of their country but cannot escape the presence of the "lion" that is state power. His account expertly weaves the details of individual lives into a historical tapestry, and each person's experiences illuminate larger changes in Turkish society happening that year. Genc's skill lies in his ability to go beyond a simple indictment of the repressive state for crushing creativity. He is aware of the privilege of his own position, the guilty comfort strongman rule can offer, and the dogmatism present both in opposition political movements as well as among those in power. In his telling, Turkey emerges as a collection of perspectives and concerns- not simply the domineering tendences of one man. Informationen zum Autor Kaya Genc is a novelist and essayist from Istanbul. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Financial Times, and New Humanist. Klappentext Turkey is a land torn between East and West, and between its glorious past and a dangerous, unpredictable future. After the violence of an attempted military coup against President Erdogan in 2016, an event which shocked the world, journalist and novelist Kaya Genc travelled around his country on a quest to find the places and people in whom the contrasts of Turkey's rich past meet. As suicide bombers attack Istanbul, and journalists and teachers are imprisoned, he walks the streets of the famous Ottoman neighbourhoods, telling the stories of the ordinary Turks who live among the contradictions and conflicts of Anatolia, one of the world's oldest civilizations. The Lion and the Nightingale presents the spellbinding story of a country whose history has been split between East and West, between violence and beauty - between the roar of the lion and the song of the nightingale. Weaving together a mixture of memoir, interview and his own autobiography, Genc takes the reader on a contemporary journey through the contradictory soul of the Turkish nation.Kaya Genc's account of modern Turkey, a country split between East and West, a rich past and an unpredictable, dangerous future. Zusammenfassung Turkey is a land torn between East and West, and between its glorious past and a dangerous, unpredictable future....
