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      RuPaul Is Sending a Rainbow Bus to Give Away Books Targeted by Bans

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      The star, whose show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has an international following, is one of the founders of a new online bookstore promoting underrepresented authors. The giveaways are part of its outreach.At a time of book bans and efforts by state legislatures to ban drag shows, the performer and television producer who is arguably the country’s most famous drag star, RuPaul, is the co-founder of a new online bookstore that will be sending a rainbow school bus from the West Coast to the South to distribute the very books targeted by those bans.He announced on Monday that he was one of three business partners behind the bookstore, Allstora, which will promote underrepresented authors and provide writers with a greater share of profits than other online booksellers do.RuPaul said that this sort of book website would fill an important gap, especially in “these strange days, we’re living in,” to support the ideas of people “who are willing to push the conversation forward.”In recent years, there has been a sharp rise in efforts to restrict access to books at libraries in the United States, and most of the challenged books are by or about L.G.B.T.Q. people or people of color, according to library and free speech organizations. Some libraries have received bomb threats, and others have faced closure over efforts to remove books. At the same time, states have tried to ban drag shows and restrict access to health care for transgender people.RuPaul with Eric Cervini, left, co-founder and chief executive of Allstora, and Adam Powell, co-founder and director of the Rainbow Book Bus.AllstoraEnter RuPaul. Drag has been in popular culture for decades, but his reality competition show “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” which is airing its sixteenth season and has more than a dozen international editions, has brought the work of hundreds, if not thousands, of drag performers to home audiences.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Neil Gaiman on the Collectibles He’s Auctioning

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      Art by Moebius, a Christmas card by Gaiman and a Swamp Thing cover are among the items.“I like the idea of spreading joy,” Neil Gaiman, the author of the Sandman series, said in an interview about why he is selling some of the original comic book art, toys and other collectibles he has amassed.During the dark days of pandemic lockdowns, buying art provided a particular comfort, he recalled. Works would arrive and he would “just kvell,” he said. He remembered buying a drawing of Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet in the snow, by the British artist E.H. Shepard. “If someone comes to the house, I say, ‘Come and look at this,’ if they are the right sort of person,” he said.He views art ownership as custodial. “It’s your job to keep it safe and hope the house doesn’t burn down while it is in your care,” he said. Then someone else can do the same, he said, and “hope their house doesn’t burn down.”Gaiman said he was inspired by his friend Geoffrey Notkin, of “Meteorite Men” on the Science Channel, who auctioned part of his collection of meteorites and donated some proceeds to charity.Gaiman will donate part of the auction proceeds to the Hero Initiative, which is an emergency fund for comics creators, and the Authors League Fund, which benefits writers in financial hardship; he will also give living artists whose work sells part of the proceeds. The items are on display at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, and bidding starts on Friday.More than 100 pieces are up for sale, and Gaiman pointed to some highlights. The author Neil Gaiman said he hopes others find joy in the memorabilia he is shedding.Rozette Rago for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Alvin Moscow, Shipwreck Chronicler and Prolific Collaborator, Dies at 98

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      After writing a best seller about the sinking of the Andrea Doria, he was a co-author with Richard M. Nixon, Patty Hearst, William S. Paley and others.Alvin Moscow, who wrote a best-selling account of the sinking of the ocean liner Andrea Doria in 1956, then collaborated on the memoirs of several public figures, including Richard M. Nixon soon after he lost the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy, died on Feb. 6 in North Las Vegas, Nev. He was 98.His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his daughter Nina Moscow.Mr. Moscow was a reporter for The Associated Press when he covered the court hearings focused on determining the cause of the violent collision between the Andrea Doria, which was en route from Genoa, Italy, to New York, and the European-bound Stockholm, in dense fog about 45 miles south of Nantucket Island in Massachusetts on the evening of July 25, 1956.In all, 51 people died. But in a remarkable civil maritime rescue operation, more than 1,600 passengers and crew members survived.In “Collision Course: The Andrea Doria and the Stockholm” (1959), Mr. Moscow described the moment of impact between the ships:“With the force of a battering ram of more than one million tons, the Stockholm prow plunged into the speeding Italian ship, crumbling like a thin sheet of tin, until her energy was spent. With the Stockholm pinioned in her, the Andrea Doria, twice her size, pivoted sharply under the impact, dragging the Stockholm along as the giant propellers of the Italian liner churned the black sea violently to white.”“Collision Course,” Mr. Moscow’s account of the sinking of the ocean liner Andrea Doria, was a New York Times best seller for 15 weeks.PutnamWalter Lord, who had described the sinking of the Titanic in his book “A Night to Remember” (1955), praised Mr. Moscow’s “magnificent analysis of the accident and sinking” in a review of “Collision Course” in The New York Times.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Some Authors Were Left Out of Awards Held in China. Leaked Emails Show Why.

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      When some books, including best sellers, were conspicuously absent from the science fiction Hugo Awards last year, writers and fans became suspicious.The Hugo Awards, a major literary prize for science fiction, have been engulfed in controversy over revelations that some writers may have been excluded based on their perceived criticism of China or the Chinese government.Suspicions in the science fiction community have been building for weeks that something was amiss with last year’s awards, which rotate to a different city each year, and in 2023 were hosted in Chengdu, China. Now, newly released emails show that the awards were likely manipulated because of political concerns.Here’s what we know.What are the Hugo Awards?The awards, first established in 1953, are given annually at a gathering hosted by the World Science Fiction Convention. Writers are nominated and awarded prizes by members of the World Science Fiction Society, which includes science fiction fans. Each person can nominate five works for each category. Those entries are then tallied so that the six works with the most votes become finalists. Previous winners have included luminaries like Ursula K. Le Guin, William Gibson and Philip K. Dick.Why were writers, and fans, upset?In January, the Hugo Awards revealed which writers had been nominated for last year’s awards, and by how many people. The information made clear that multiple authors who had enough nominations to be finalists were shut out of the process; award administrators had marked them as not eligible, without specifying a reason. Among the excluded authors were two Western writers of Chinese descent: R.F. Kuang, who is Chinese American and who was widely expected to be recognized for her novel “Babel,” a historical fantasy set in mid-1800s Oxford, and Xiran Jay Zhao, a Chinese Canadian author whose novel “Iron Widow” is a sci-fi reimagining of China’s female emperor.“I assume this was a matter of undesirability rather than ineligibility,” Kuang posted on Instagram in January. “Excluding ‘undesirable’ work is not only embarrassing for all involved parties, but renders the entire process and organization illegitimate.”What did the leaked emails reveal?The exclusion of popular authors of Chinese descent led to speculation that the awards’ administrators had weeded out those whose political views might prove controversial in China. Those suspicions were confirmed recently, when emails leaked by Diane Lacey, a member of last year’s Hugo administration team, were published in a report by Chris M. Barkley, a science fiction fan and journalist, and Jason Sanford, a journalist and science fiction writer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The National Book Awards Opens Up to Writers Who Are Not U.S. Citizens

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      The awards, which celebrate the best of American literature, are expanding the definition of who qualifies.Since their inauguration in 1950, the National Book Awards have set a lofty goal: to celebrate the best writing in America. And for most of the awards’ history, American literature was defined as books written by United States citizens.On Thursday, the National Book Foundation, which administers the prizes, announced that it was dropping the citizenship requirement, opening up the prize to immigrants and other longtime residents who have made their home in the United States.Ruth Dickey, the executive director of the National Book Foundation, said she hoped the change would help broaden the way the book world defines great American writing.“We are all deeply thinking about, how do we most expansively think about the literature of a place, and how writers contribute to that place?” she said. “How do we think about who are the writers who are part of a literary community, and who are we excluding when we draw certain boundaries?”In adopting the change, the National Book Awards are following other major literary prizes and organizations.Last fall, the board that administers the Pulitzer Prizes said that beginning with their 2025 prizes, permanent and longtime residents of the United States would be eligible for its awards for literature, drama and music. Previously, those categories were only open to American citizens, whereas the journalism awards were open to noncitizens whose work was published by U.S. media. The Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Foundation have also expanded their prizes to include poetry by immigrants with temporary legal status.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel’s Moral and Political Dilemmas

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      More from our inbox:The Frankfurt Book Fair’s Cancellation of a Palestinian AuthorRegulating AirlinesCount Presidential Ballot Separately Pool photo by Miriam Alster, via ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Israel Is About to Make a Terrible Mistake,” by Thomas L. Friedman (column, Oct. 22):Mr. Friedman’s arguments might be valid if dealing with a sane adversary. But nowhere does he mention the deep visceral hatred of Hamas and associated groups toward Israel. He does not acknowledge the euphoria of the Hamas leaders and their supporters after the attack on Israel, and the hysterical vengeance sought by the millions of pro-Palestinians.I am left-wing, and I certainly do not share any ideology with the right-wing settlers. But I do totally empathize with the rage currently felt here in Israel. It is time to “take the gloves off.”We do not intend to be the victims of the destruction of Israel (Hamas’s goal), and the subjects of Mr. Friedman’s future tearful obituary that he would write “the day after.”E. WinerTel AvivTo the Editor:Thomas L. Friedman underestimates the barbarism (his word) of Hamas. He claims that a two-state solution needs to be part of Israel’s retaliation. It was always apparent that not long after the Oct. 7 massacre Israel would lose the public relations war. The horror would be news for only a few days. Social and mainstream media would move to the next series of headlines, the unfortunate and horrific consequences for the average Palestinian in the subsequent war.While Gaza and the West Bank are inextricably linked, contending that the response to the barbarism must be accompanied by a solution to a problem that has been unresolved for ages is impractical and unrealistic.Hamas has no interest in a peaceful solution. Its antisemitic barbarism reaffirmed that it wants no state of Israel in any form.Alan MetzChapel Hill, N.C.To the Editor:Re “Do We Treat Palestinians as Lesser Victims?,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, Oct. 22):Mr. Kristof does not mention that Hamas hides in and underneath crowded civilian settings, including mosques, hospitals and schools. Israel does not deliberately target civilians. Hamas, on the other hand, purposefully targets Israeli civilians (and holds hostage Israeli babies, the elderly and everyone in between), and uses Gazan men, women and children as tactical pawns and human shields.In such a case, civilian casualties are tragically unavoidable. Mr. Kristof, I appreciate your reminder of the sanctity of human life, but how would you suggest Israel proceed when its enemy does not consider this a value? Indeed, it is Hamas who is putting Gazan civilians at risk.Bina WestrichTeaneck, N.J.To the Editor:In urging readers to reject the “hierarchy of human life” purportedly embedded in support for Israeli military action, Nicholas Kristof attacks a straw man. No serious defender of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 massacres argues that the lives of Israeli children are worth more than those of Gazan children. To the contrary, they argue that a failure to destroy Hamas now — leaving it capable of and eager to repeat similar atrocities — would result in far more death, destruction and human misery (for both Israelis and Gazans) than the admittedly terrible civilian costs of a full-scale Israeli incursion.And if we are calculating human costs, we had best consider the consequences of Mr. Kristof’s proposed policy: If democratic nations adopt a policy that terrorists who butcher innocents render themselves invulnerable by shielding behind a civilian population, it is not just Israeli or Gazan children who will suffer. It is everyone’s children.Yishai SchwartzWashingtonTo the Editor:Re “Hamas Bears the Blame for Every Death in This War,” by Bret Stephens (column, Oct. 17):Imagine if Hamas, since winning control of Gaza, had put its resources into building up the community with schools, hospitals and other institutions that uplifted the Palestinian people! Hamas would be considered “heroes” in the eyes of most of the world and its leadership would have attained political legitimacy.But, no, instead it is intent on depravity and destruction to the bitter end.Marc BloomPrinceton, N.J.The Frankfurt Book Fair’s Cancellation of a Palestinian AuthorAdania ShibliFranziska RothenbühlerTo the Editor:Re “A Chill Has Been Cast Over the Book World,” by Pamela Paul (column, Oct. 19):Reading Ms. Paul’s forceful condemnation of the Frankfurt Book Fair’s decision to cancel a celebration recognizing a Palestinian author, I waited in vain for her to address one indispensable fact: Frankfurt is in Germany, a country that, for obvious reasons, has assumed a special role in defending Israel and protecting Jews around the world.For example, the German penal code prohibits public denial of the Holocaust and its Nationality Act mandates restoration of citizenship for any Jew whose forebears lost their citizenship during the Nazi regime.Contrary to Ms. Paul’s claim that it is a “false notion that there is a wrong time for certain authors or novels and that now is not the time for Palestinian literature,” the days following a Palestinian terrorist attack that resulted in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust are precisely the wrong time for a German book fair to celebrate a novel excoriating Israel.Adania Shibli’s views are important and should be heard in Germany and elsewhere — just not in Frankfurt right now. Ms. Paul does a grave disservice to German Jews living and dead by not acknowledging the tragic history underlying the Frankfurt Book Fair’s decision.Andrew D. HermanChevy Chase, Md.Regulating Airlines Carter Johnston for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “A Frayed System, and 131 Lives Put in Jeopardy” (front page, Oct. 15):The article states, “The safety net that underpins air travel in America is fraying, exposing passengers to potential tragedies.”The blame seems to be focused on government air traffic controllers. They share some of it, but they are only part of a much larger system including aircraft technology, airport design, aircrew and airspace management.But there is another problem rarely talked about: competition. Since airlines were deregulated in 1978, the industry has seen bankruptcies, deterioration of comfort and service, delays and congestion, complexity in pricing and fares, and stagnation in aviation systems planning and investment.A strong argument could be made that airline competition has not worked as expected, and even worked counterproductively. A new airline regulatory program may be called for — one that combines the public and private sectors in a jointly managed and financed national aviation system with strong oversight in safety standards, infrastructure investment and passenger consumer benefits that are missing under the current deregulation.Matthew G. AnderssonChicagoThe writer was the founder and C.E.O. of Indigo Airlines and is a former aviation consultant.Count Presidential Ballot Separately Lukas VerstraeteTo the Editor:Re “Counting Ballots by Hand Ensures Only Chaos,” by Jessica Huseman (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 20):Ms. Huseman is absolutely right that counting lengthy ballots by hand would be a nightmare. But we could reduce the growing suspicion that computers can’t count our votes properly if our presidential elections were administered separately from all the other races on Election Day.If there were paper ballots just for the presidency, they could be counted in one long night, as is done in many European parliamentary elections, in which voters only cast one vote for a party.Mark WestonSarasota, Fla.The writer is the author of “The Runner-Up Presidency: The Elections That Defied America’s Popular Will.” More

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      What Alex Jones, Woody Allen and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Share

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      Skyhorse Publishing has built a reputation for taking on authors that other houses avoid. And its founder has helped Kennedy mount a bid for president.Skyhorse Publishing is not a large company, but it has an outsize reputation for taking on authors that others avoid. Its list includes figures on the left, the right and those outside the mainstream altogether, like Alex Jones, the conspiracy broadcaster whose recent book examines “the global elite’s international conspiracy to enslave humanity and all life on the planet.”What has garnered significantly less attention is the way in which the publisher’s founder, Tony Lyons, has supported the political ambitions of one of his authors: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose campaign for president has been rife with misinformation, including false theories about coronavirus vaccines. Mr. Lyons is a chairman of a super PAC supporting Mr. Kennedy. Under his direction, Skyhorse has donated $150,000 to the group.Mr. Lyons casts his support for Mr. Kennedy as an extension of his mission as publisher: to defend against what he considers censorship. “Bobby Kennedy says this line now and then,” Mr. Lyons said. “Name a time in history where the people advocating for censorship were the good guys.”At a moment when the country is deeply polarized, Mr. Lyons stands out among publishers for being more willing — and, because of the structure of the private company he controls, more able — to take risks. Skyhorse’s titles range from anodyne cooking and gardening books to works that court controversy or promote theories that have been debunked.Its best-selling book ever was Mr. Kennedy’s “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health,” which was released in 2021 and makes baseless claims against Dr. Fauci, accusing him of having “truly a dark agenda.” Mr. Lyons said it has sold more than 1.1 million copies across all formats.“He is unique in the way he questions and challenges industry norms,” David Steinberger, a longtime publishing executive, said of Lyons. “Nothing Tony does surprises me.”Mr. Lyons has also supported the political ambitions of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Skyhorse author whose books, like his political campaign, can be sources of misinformation.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesIn recent years, publishing decisions that might not have seemed controversial in the past have incited a backlash. After Simon & Schuster signed a two-book deal with former Vice President Mike Pence in 2021, more than 200 employees, joined by thousands of writers and other publishing professionals, signed a petition demanding the deal be canceled. Simon & Schuster published the first book in the deal, a memoir, anyway.In instances where other publishers decided to drop a book, Skyhorse has sometimes stepped in. Hachette canceled the publication of a memoir in 2020 by Woody Allen, called “Apropos of Nothing,” in the face of allegations that Allen molested his adopted daughter when she was a child. Allen has denied the allegations and was not charged after two investigations. Skyhorse picked up the memoir and published it weeks later. The book became a New York Times best seller.Mr. Lyons takes pride in publishing across the political spectrum, and beyond.Last year, as several publishers rushed out their own version of the Jan. 6 report, Skyhorse put out two versions: one with a foreword by Elizabeth Holtzman, a Democrat and former United States representative from New York, and another with a foreword by Darren Beattie, who was a speechwriter for former President Donald J. Trump.This year, Skyhorse published “The War on Ivermectin,” by Dr. Pierre Kory, which argues the anti-parasitic drug could have ended the Covid-19 pandemic. (Clinical trials have found that ivermectin is not effective against Covid-19.)Mr. Lyons said he believes the pharmaceutical industry has too much power over scientific research and federal regulators, and so he approaches established science with suspicion. This wariness, even in the face of widespread agreement and convincing evidence, informs his approach to publishing.“Time after time, people have generally agreed about things that turned out to be demonstrably untrue,” Mr. Lyons said, citing as an example the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a claim that served a basis for justifying the U.S. invasion, and which turned out to be false. “That’s a much bigger danger than the danger of people being wrong.”But there is at least one line Mr. Lyons said he would not cross. Though Skyhorse publishes Alex Jones, he said it would not publish a book by him about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which Mr. Jones has falsely argued was a government hoax.Christopher Finan, the executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, said he supports Mr. Lyons’s publishing program, and the coalition welcomed Mr. Lyons onto its board this summer.Mr. Lyons’s philosophy reflects the coalition’s, Mr. Finan said: “Nobody has a monopoly on the truth.”The publisher puts out novels, thrillers, cookbooks and other workaday titles alongside books that other publishers have preferred to keep at arm’s length. Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesSkyhorse, which published about 450 titles last year, also puts out novels and thrillers, along with books about sports and graphic design. Much of its business is supported by an undramatic collection of older books — reliable sellers that include a pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution, a series of cookbooks called “Fix-It and Forget-It” and a book titled “Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills,” which offers instructions on activities like weaving a rag rug and raising chickens.Mark Gorton, an investor and entrepreneur, is a chairman, along with Mr. Lyons, of American Values 2024, the PAC supporting Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Gorton said his own political evolution away from the mainstream began about 16 years ago while he was reading a book about former President Lyndon B. Johnson. As he made his way through the book, he thought, “Oh my God, Lyndon Johnson is behind the J.F.K. assassination.” From there, he began researching what he described as “various deep state crimes,” and by the time he met Mr. Lyons many years later, he estimated he had 30 Skyhorse books on his shelves.Now, Mr. Gorton said, he acknowledges that his worldview — which includes believing “that 9/11 was orchestrated by the U.S. government” — is “almost on a different plane from most people.” (There is no evidence that the U.S. government orchestrated the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, nor that it was involved in President Kennedy’s assassination.)“When people are like, ‘Are you left or right?’” Mr. Gorton said, “It’s like, I’m up when everyone else is down. It’s not even the same scale.”Mr. Lyons said he first met Mr. Kennedy about 12 years ago at a speech Mr. Kennedy was giving about thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in some vaccines, which Mr. Kennedy has falsely linked to brain disorders and autism. Numerous studies have failed to support a connection between thimerosal in vaccines and autism. The preservative was removed from most childhood vaccines in 2001, yet autism diagnoses have continued to rise.The two men connected over the issue. Mr. Lyons said a member of his family had had a seizure after a vaccine, which he believes led to brain damage and an autism diagnosis.“It has definitely influenced me,” he said. “If you see something with your own eyes, then you see newspaper after newspaper that says it never happens and that anybody who thinks that it happens is crazy, then that does change you in some way.”In 2014, Mr. Lyons published a book edited by Mr. Kennedy on the subject, called “Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak.”Industry executives said that while Mr. Lyons’s role as a chairman of the American Values 2024 super PAC was unusual, it did not appear to be unethical. He is also not the country’s only politically engaged publisher. Rupert Murdoch is deeply involved in Republican politics and is a major shareholder of News Corp, which is the parent company of HarperCollins.Mr. Lyons takes pride in publishing across the political spectrum. Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesMark Gottlieb, a literary agent with Trident Media Group who has sold many titles to Skyhorse over the years, said that Skyhorse fills a critical niche in the industry.“Skyhorse is a safety net for publishing for voices that would otherwise get canceled,” Mr. Gottlieb said. He has sold to Skyhorse illustrated books, thrillers, memoirs and some nonfiction books that might not have easily found a home elsewhere, such as “Gender Madness,” a book by Oli London, a TikTok personality who writes about struggling with gender identity and why, after living as a trans woman, he decided to begin identifying as a man again.“They don’t publish any one political view,” Mr. Gottlieb said. “They’ll show the complete spectrum.”Mr. Lyons said that spectrum includes many Skyhorse titles with which he personally disagrees. Among them, Mr. Lyons said, was “Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect,” which he described as a book that “‘debunks’ many of the arguments in other Skyhorse titles.”Mr. Lyons wrote in a text message that he found the book to be “interesting and helpful,” but, he added, “not quite right for me — since I’m proud and excited to live in and explore and learn from the rabbit hole, a place of countercultural ideas, fascinating characters, mind-boggling uncertainty and the possibility of progress.”Alexandra Alter More

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      Burhan Sönmez on the Tensions Between Politics and Art in Turkey

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      Burhan Sönmez, who is president of PEN international, discusses the tension between politics and art and the role of literature in authoritarian societies.The momentous Turkish presidential election, whose second round will take place on Sunday, has more than just geopolitical consequences; it is a watershed for culture as well. Since 2016, after a failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the government here has cracked down on artists, writers, filmmakers and academics, who have experienced censorship, job losses and a climate of fear.For the novelist Burhan Sönmez, who is part of the country’s ethnic Kurdish minority, the upheavals of the Erdogan years are only the latest chapter in an ongoing struggle between Turkish power and Turkish art.Born outside Ankara in 1965, where his first language was Kurdish, he worked as a human rights lawyer but went into exile in Britain after a police assault. He has written five novels, including the prizewinning “Istanbul Istanbul,” “Labyrinth” and “Stone and Shadow,” newly out in English by Other Press. His novels delve into imprisonment and memory, with echoes of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Jorge Luis Borges.
      Sönmez now lives in Istanbul and Cambridge, and in 2021 he was named president of PEN International, where he has been an outspoken defender of freedom of expression in Turkey and elsewhere.I spoke to Sönmez over video a few days after the first round of the Turkish general election, in which Erdogan finished a half-point shy of an absolute majority. This interview has been edited and condensed.Istanbul has always been a city of arrivals. When did you first come here?During the military-coup era, the 1980s. I was born and grew up in a small village in central Turkey. It’s in the middle of the countryside, like a desert village, without electricity. I moved to Istanbul to study law, and the next phase of my life began after I went to exile in Britain. So now I can combine those different spaces — small village, big Istanbul and then Europe. They all come together and sometimes they separate.Frequently, there’s an indeterminacy of setting in your novels, not only of geography but of time. You rarely use the obvious tells of technology or current affairs that some authors use to ground a reader in time.Particularly in my novel “Istanbul, Istanbul,” I didn’t state a specific year, or period, when the events take place. When people read it, everyone feels that this is the story of their generation.For better and for worse!Yes. But, you know, only a naïve writer would feel proud of that. You would say, “OK, I am reflecting the feelings of different generations in a single novel.” In fact, it comes from the society itself in Turkey. Every generation has gone through the same suffering, the same problems, same oppression, same pain. So it is not a literary talent, actually, to bring all those times into a single story.In “Istanbul, Istanbul,” the narrators are prisoners, held without charge in underground cells, who tell one another stories. What their stories sketch in aggregate is a kind of dream-state Istanbul, where freedom is always abbreviated but with which freethinkers and artists remain hopelessly in love.This really started in the 1850s, when the first liberal intellectuals were oppressed by the Ottoman sultan and went into European exile. When we look at this history over time, 150 or 170 years, we see that, with every decade, governments used the same methods of oppression against writers, journalists, academics, intellectuals.But the tradition of oppression also created a tradition of resistance. And now look: After 20 years of the rule of Erdogan, still nearly half of society is against him strongly. We haven’t finished. This is partly our history of resistance.Turkey, like America, has a strong political fault line between the cities and the countryside. But your novels have crisscrossed from Istanbul to rural Anatolia and back.Especially in my last novel, “Stone and Shadow,” I wrote about this, comparing the eastern, middle and also the western part of Turkey over the last 100 years.What’s the difference between life in a small village in rural Turkey and in Istanbul? You could say it’s the difference between living in a small hut with a gas lamp and living on a street with flashing neon lights. Two different worlds, two different eras.But you should understand: Istanbul is now also part of rural Turkey. There has been a huge migration from the countryside. When I went to study in Istanbul, the population was about five million. Now it’s 17 million. It’s not easy for a big city to create a new citizen, a new cultural spirit.On that subject, one of the most disturbing themes of this election has been the demonization around refugees. I wonder how it sounds to you, as a former refugee yourself.The sad thing for Turkey now, we’ve seen a new rise of nationalism — in the color of racism, actually — against immigrants. There’s open racism against Syrians and Afghan people in Turkey. And every side, every political platform, has different ways of legitimizing this.Right-wingers say, “These people are underdeveloped Arabs. This is a backward race.” From secular progressive people, you hear, “Oh, they’re right-wing Islamist militants. They are here to support Erdogan, and to invade our country, to turn it into an Islamic republic.” In every case, racism or hatred of immigrants is on the top of the agenda.Nationalism now dominates almost every political movement.Yet there’s a rare lightness and freedom to your characterization of these political themes. “Labyrinth,” the story of a musician who loses his memory after jumping into the Bosporus, barely hints at the upheavals of the Erdogan years, when the amnesiac sees a torn poster of the president and confuses him for a sultan.We know the difference between art and journalism. Journalism speaks directly. Speaking this different language of art, we feel that we are no longer in the field of society, of politics. A political matter or a historical fact is just a color in my novel. That is real power. When I write a novel, I feel that I unite the past and the future. Because the past is a story and the future is a dream.Has there been a self-censorship of artists and writers in Turkey over the last few years?Well, first, every year more than 500 new Turkish novels are being published. When I was at the university, the number of new novels published in Turkish was about 15 or 20. That’s an enormous difference.With the young generation, I see that they are brave. Despite all this oppression, this danger of going to prison or being unemployed, young people are writing fearlessly. They are writing about Kurdish issues, about women’s issues, about L.G.B.T. issues, about political crimes in Turkey.Hundreds of writers are like this: writing openly, and at some point a bit dangerously, for themselves. This is something of which we should be proud.As president of PEN International, you have a particularly close view of the state of free expression. Have things gotten any better in Turkey since the crackdowns of 2016-2017, when thousands of academics and journalists were arrested or purged?No, no, it’s not better. In Turkey, we never got to distinguish between bad and good. It was always: bad or worse.In Turkey, PEN International has been supporting writers in prison. For myself, being a lawyer, I have the opportunity to go to prisons. Anytime I go to Turkey, I use this advantage. I go and I see Selahattin Demirtas, or Osman Kavala, so many people. It is sad to see great people are still in prison.But also it is great to see that we have solidarity. At the end of my novel “Istanbul, Istanbul,” I used an epigraph by a Persian Sufi from the Middle Ages. He says, “Hell is not the place where we suffer, it’s the place where no one hears us suffering.” I know that if I am arrested, I will never be left alone.I probably shouldn’t ask you what you expect when Turks vote in the presidential runoff next Sunday. …No, you should ask. I think we’ll win. I’m too optimistic in life, and very naïve. More