Around
this time 2006 when Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature, I
did a book discussion at Dr Kaung's Salon (2005-9) on My Name is Red.
It seemed OK because the cafe hosts were from Ethiopia, not from Turkey.
A woman who had read all of Pamuk's books came to the discussion.
So did 3 people from the Turkish embassy, who tried to argue that the Armenian Genocide never took place.
My audience of about 15-20 people quashed them, and the 2 men and one woman left in a huff abt 15 mins into the discussion.
I
must say I am quite used to being heckled like this on the Burma
circuit, since the late 1990s in Canada to 2012, in NY, when I sat on my
last Burma panel (with ref to the Rohingya).
Now
these are no more, so I just stay home, set glue traps for mice, (real
traps--the mouse came in under my front door, neighbors chased it down
the hallway) and write, plan dream trips, tweet and blog and look after
myself.
Everyone seems to have gone to tango with the Burmese junta.
I
write mainly fiction now and was thinking of segueing away from Burma,
then I read Orhan Pamuk's Red Haired Woman, which brilliantly combines a
mystery with digging wells and Turkish politics and economics.
so--
I highly recommend Red Haired Woman--it's not your usual run of the mill mystery running around mindlessly.
I can't say whether I like Red Haired Woman (near the end now) or My Name is Red (centered around a painter) better.
I can't say more as I can't give the plot away.
km
5-13-2019
