"Denigrating Turkishness" ???

A Turkish novelist is being prosecuted for having a fictional character state that one of his ancestors was an Armeian victim of Turkish genocide. The New York Times reports that Elif Shafak, "a Turkish novelist who has spent much of her life in Europe and the United States...fills her books with characters who defy all orthodoxy, and in her journalism she lives by the same code, mixing feminism and nuanced political analysis with a deep interest in Ottoman culture."

She's now in trouble, as are many other Turkish writers for, among other things, "denigrating Turkishness". It's all part of a backlash against an attempt to liberalize Turkey and get it into the European Union. The Times article is interesting, if troubling, reading.

"State of Denial" (see the sidebar) is back, and this morning features a semi-book related story, about the Department of Education dropping Evolutionary Biology from its list of approved studies.