A jailed Kurdish politician and a Turkish author on the opposite aspect of jail bars have turned their penpalship into considered one of Turkey’s highest-selling books.
| Picture Credit score: AFP

A jailed Kurdish chief and a Turkish author on the opposite aspect of the bars have used their penpal exchanges to jot down considered one of Turkey’s highest-selling books.

The crime novel “Duet in Purgatory”, which encompasses a retired left-wing lawyer and a bitter ageing basic with a tortuous previous, has been a roaring success.

The 2 writers developed the story, which spans the final 40 years of Turkey’s tumultuous historical past and the long-standing Kurdish battle, with out ever discussing the plot.

“It was a dangerous gamble to try to write a novel such as you’d play chess, transfer by transfer, with out agreeing on the plot, the characters or the type — nothing,” Selahattin Demirtas instructed a literary critic in an interview from jail.

The writing of the story started when writer and translator Yigit Bener despatched the jailed Kurdish chief Demirtas, who’s serving a 42-year sentence, a duplicate of Louis-Ferdinand Celine’s basic novel “Journey to the Finish of the Evening”.

He additionally put a observe inside – “the expression of my solidarity”.

Mr. Demirtas, who’s 51 and a former co-president of the third largest political celebration in Turkey’s parliament was jailed in 2016 with the European Courtroom of Human Rights later condemning his detention as political and calling for his launch.

“I could not settle for that this man for whom, like six million others, I had voted for, and whose concepts I share, discovered himself behind bars whereas I’m free,” stated Bener.

Lots of enjoyable

Mr. Bener, who lived in exile within the Eighties, had praised Mr. Demirtas’s assortment of quick tales “Daybreak”, and the 2 started corresponding through the politician’s lawyer.

The re-election of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Might 2023 killed Mr. Demirtas’s hope of an early launch, so Bener pitched the concept of taking their correspondence additional.

“What if we wrote a novel, each of us?” Bener advised, though he had not thought of a plot or characters and hadn’t supposed it as a critical challenge.

Whereas the concept initially sought to maintain the prisoner busy, the duo quickly wrapped 13 chapters.

Mr. Bener refused to say who wrote first, however stated that the pair took turns to jot down.

“We had a variety of enjoyable however we needed to end,” stated Mr. Bener. “We put it apart for 2 months earlier than we had just a few associates learn it.”

Mr. Demirtas’s publishing home Dipnot, which has put out his earlier novels and quick tales, initially printed 55,000 copies final month, with extra to return in September.

“Our private tales, mine and Yigit’s trajectories helped shape the novel. He motivated me after I wanted it,” stated the Kurdish political chief.

The key behind the novel’s success is its well timed relevance, stated Mr. Bener.

“The e book poses the query of reconciliation via two characters from the identical era of losers who share the identical feeling of defeat,” stated Bener. “The concept speaks to at this time’s Turkey which is extra polarised than ever.”

Mr. Bener was “extraordinarily emotional” when he lastly bought permission to fulfill Mr. Demirtas in Edirne jail in northwest Turkey on the day of the e book’s launch, because the opposition chief is in isolation and solely allowed weekly visits from his lawyer or household.

Exceptionally, he was set free of the small cell the place he has been locked up for eight years, which he shares with a former mayor of the Kurdish metropolis of Diyarbakir, Adnan Selcuk Mizrakli.

Critics have praised the “humorous, fast-paced and spirited narrative”, with readers speeding to see the free half of the writing duo as he excursions bookshops.