Pearls from the Bosporus

Frankfurter Zeitgeist:

Pearls from the Bosporus (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)

What happens when a TV moderator organises a show and prizes are awarded to Veronica Ferres 43 (best actress), Misel Maticevic 38 (best actor), ´Contergan´ (best film) and the best show ´Germany sucht den Superstar?´ An award show is in itself a comedy and slapstick affair but Thomas Gottschalk made a mistake this time. You can´t award stars and starlets, pruducers and directors in the same way you that you award a literary heavy-weight like Marcel Reich-Ranicki 88, the Literary Pope of the German speaking world. The octogenarian refused the prize for his well-known ´Das Literarische Quartett.´ Reich-Ranicki went on record as saying: "I´ve seen so much stupidity this evening and I don´t believe that I belong to them," thereby distancing himself from the jolly superficial crowd at the TV show. Gottschalk couldn´t believe his ears but was his old self, as usual, imitating Reich-Ranicki and trying hard not to lose his face, and making attempts to repair the damage to his show. Serious German literature and frivolous entertainment are indeed strange bedfellows.

I went to the Frankfurter Book Fair (October 15-19,2008) as I do every year, and this year´s host country was Turkey, which was an excellent choice because Turkey lies between the Orient and the Occident, and there are some pearls of contemporary literature from this nation on the Bosporus. The Turkish poets and writers introduced 200 new works and translations to demonstrate the fascinating and colourful spectrum of a culture which lies between Europe and Asia. Some 350 Turkish writers and poets turned up at the Main metropolis.

Since Islam has been in the world´s headlines since a long time, Turkey has a special role to play as a modern Islamic country, and literature from the Bosorus has received a great deal of attention, especially in the German speaking world: Germany, Austria, Switzerland and South Tyrole. A lot of German publishing houses have Turkish literature in their programs and catalogues. Kiepenheuer & Witsch have published Feridun Zaimoglu and Emine Sevgi, dtv (German pocket book) has brought out Osman Engin´s books, the Swiss Unionsverlag has printed Yesar Kemal and Esmahan Aykol (crime fiction).

The Book Fair was great fun, a place where you could watch the bespectacled Alfred Biolek, Paulo Coelho, Günter Grass, Bishop Lehmann, Elke Heidenreich alias ´Else Strattmann´ to name a few, Switzerland´s NZZ, Germany´s Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, Arte and 3 Sat were all there, promoting their products. Turkey´s hostesses were busy distributing poetry books by poets unknown to German and international readers. The motto of the host country was to present the Turkey in ´fascinating colours.´ How colourful was it? One had the impression that the writers from the Bosporus dominated the show. When you come to think that there are 1700 publishing houses in Turkey, with the state as the editor-in-chief. Turkey publishes 20,000 new books every year. However, only 4 % of the 700 million Turks read, and of the 10,000 bookstores, 5000 are located in Istanbul. There is a big discrepancy between Istanbul and its Asian hinterland. Nevertheless, it was a big step towards popularising and promoting Turkish literature, not only in the country itself but also in the world.

Europe has so many migrants from Turkey and the Germans want to understand the mentality of the Turks and wish to present a genuine picture of life in Turkey today. To this end, Germany´s Robert Bosch Stiftung and a few Turkologists from Freiburg (Erika Glassen and Jens Peter laut) and the Swiss Unionsverlag have cooperated and created a ´Turkish Library´ comrising 20 volumes of not yet translated writings and lyrics from the past century to our times. What a treasure for readers around the world.

The fact that two Turkish authors were awarded the German Peace Prize, Yasar Kemal (1997) and Orhan Pamuk (2005) gave Turkish literature the necessary boost that it needed. And when the latter received the coveted Nobel Prize for Literature a year later, it was the most wonderful thing for writers and poets from the Bosporus, despite the demonstratons because of Pamuk´s political attacks regarding human rights.

Orhan Pamuk brought out a new novel with the title : The Museum of Innocence. The German edition bears the title ´Das Museum der Unschuld´ published by Hauser (500 pages). Pamuk tells us the story of his protagonist Kemal, who falls in love but is engaged with someone else. Since he cannot forget his first love, he steals everyday objects from her house. And these stolen objects are the exponates of his museum. The novel is timed in the seventies in the town on the Bosporus. Even though the people look very westernised and extroverted, the novel reveals that the Turks still hang on very much to their old traditions and beliefs, especially when it comes to behavioural patterns between the sexes. At the same time, the novel documents a plethora of objects of daily use from the surroundings of the unhappy beloved and it is his way of symbolically setting up a Taj Mahal of Innocence. We know from history that when Mumtaz, the favourite wife of Shah Jehan died, he built for her a memorial of white marble, which is a symbol and a metaphor for eternal love which has triggered the imagination of writers and poets from South Asia, the islamic world and elsewhere.

Turkish literature has come of age due to its provincial character, and the fact that it is different in comparison to German literature, and now it belongs to the world stage. Pamuk´s favourite Turkish author is Tanpinar who died in 1960 and he was the author´s hero. Tanpinar was at home with literary authors like Proust and Gide, as well as the Ottoman culture. Pamuk wrote about him in his ´Istanbul´ book. Ahmet H. Tanpinar´s ´Das Uhrenstellinstitut´ was also published by Hanser (432 pages, 24,90 euros). Whenever Ohran Pamuk had private or political problems, he just wrote on his cherished work: The Museum of Innocence, which gave him solace and protection. Perhaps that´s the reason it´s 600 pages thick. Surely a good buy for the reader seeking the same quantum of solace and protection from the political and psychic turmoil of our daily lives.

Orhan Pamuk doesn´t want to become like the Czech protagonist in Milan Kundera´s novel Slowness and talk about how things are in his own country all the time. He wants to become himself, without deriding VS Naipaul´s ´imitation´ in ´The Mimic Men.´ Pamuk´s sympathies seem to lie with Dostoevsky, who was infuriated by Russian intellectuals who knew Europe better than their own country. To this end, Pamuk has been purchasing and gathering Turkish books from the booksellers of Beyazit market since the age of eighteen. His father gave him a handsome pocket money since those days, and he likes to put himself in the shoes of the Turkish, or for that matter in those of other authors to understand why authors write what they do.

Asked about Istanbul´s poetic places, he mentions: Bosporus, Taksim Place, Beyoglu and the Golden Horn.

Another man-of-letters from Turkey is Yasar Kemal, who was born in 1923 in a south Anatolian hamlet. His father was a rich landlord who turned poor later. Small Yasar was impressed by the poems, epics of the wandering minstrels and folk-singers of his country. After school he worked as a shepherd, drove a tractor, worked as a cobbler and then tried his hand as a street-writer to make both ends meet. And that was the beginning of a great career as a writer. His novel ´Mehmed, my Falcon´ (1955) made him the most-read writer of Turkey. He lives and works in Istanbul. Other popular contemporary books by poets from Turkey are: Love Surpasses Me (Abdulkadir Budak), Farewell Poems (Adnan Ozer), New Cantos (Ahmet Ada), Abraham Firsaking Me (Bejan Matur, Y´OL (Birhan Keskin), Quarter of Pepper (Didem Madak), Electra Cliff (Gulseli Inal), Ultrasound in the Ultrazone (Lale Muldur), Evening News (Sennur Sezer), First Blood (Amet Guntan), The Young Man From Trabzon Yasar Mirac.

The bus is speeding along the autobahn from Frankfurt to Freiburg, towards the southwest. It´d been a long day with lots of small talks in the international Austrian, German and Swiss stalls with book mongers, authors and the many readings. I was delighted to meet, among others, an Indian author. No, it wasn´t Aravind Adiga who won this year´s Man Booker Prize with his novel about Mumbai: ´Der weisse Tiger.´ Too many tigers in India since John Hunt. I remember a certain Diamond Rana from Nepal who wrote ´In the Wake of the Tiger,´ which was a love story based in the palaces of Katmandu. It was translated into English by a dear lady from Leeds (Greta Rana) I used to know. A German published had received a German translation of Diamond Rana´s book and she asked me if it would be a good idea to print it in Germany. I´d read the English version translated by Greta, but since I hadn´t read the German version, I advised her against it. Ever heard of Lost in Translation? That´s the plight of the Dolmetscher or translator. He or she adds his own version of a tale or even doesn´t tell what the author might find extremely relevant, you know.

Back to the Indian author. He seemed to know Basle and Freiburg well, where he´d done a bit of reading in selected Swiss and German circles. When I told him that I was holding lectures on Creative Writing at the University of Freiburg and teaching Medical English among other things in Switzerland, his reaction was: "Wonderful!" The author reminded me of an Indian poet named Sharma and his hectic way of talking to you. Always planning ahead, and on the move, with a chaotic body language. Perhaps that´s what we call a ´schopferische Chaos´ in German. You can feel the restlessness in these persons, fidgety, looking around while talking to you, trying not to miss anything, the sights in the immediate surroundings, how the people are dressed, hairdos and all, especially females passing by. I must say I like meeting people who have themselves under control, are good speakers and also good listeners. A person who likes a dialogue, and not someone who likes his or her own voice endlessly. Sometimes you feel like leaving the person standing and take French leave. Like Woody Allen´s psychotherapist who dims the light, puts on endless, soothing music in his iPod and lets the poor, neurotic fellow lie on the couch and leaves the room to do other important things. Just before he leaves silently, he gives explicit instructions: "Tell me about yourself from the beginning.." The patient talks for hours, you´ve done your errands.

And off he was to attend a podium discussion at the International Forum.

I also went to a stand run by an unassuming Dinesh Manandhar, billed in the catalogue as World Nepal Books. You could find glossy calenders, thankas, incense sticks, beads, prayer flags but no books. I was expecting a Bibliotheca himalayanica like the ones in Catmandu (Mandala, Ratna Pustak, Pilgrims). As we chatted, like under the Pipal Tree at Catmandu´s New Road, we were interrupted by an elderly German lady who bought a wheel-of-life magnetic badge ´meant for her fifty year old partner.´ Dinesh has a shop ´Aasunti´ at Mannheim, near the railway station with goodies from Nepal.

He said that he´d met Prachanda when he came to Germany and that the Marxist leader has great political dreams but the developed countries made no move to support his ideas financially. Perhaps he should try Russians or Chinese, since the democratic world has second thoghts and a objections about supporting a country led by a man who has blood in his hands, because his opponents were brutally mowed down by the Maobadi fighting machinery.

Somehow, Dinesh´s voice and his Katmandu Newari accent brought to me memories of a long demised friend, a German-educated physician who met with a tragic case of heart attack, leaving behind his two kids and a wife at the airport in Bangkok. That´s maya, this worldly illusion in which we play our role for a lifetime, some short, some long, as we say in the East. Dinesh was an all-round talent and said he´d be publishing books soon. I wished him weel in his endeavour. I wonder what happened to the so-called Katmandu Edition run by the Thapas. In a German radio interview Manjushri Thapa and another Thapa were featured and the radio journalist called the affair a "fulminate Beginn" in the German publishing world, but little if anything substantial has appeared till now, beside a badly translated German version of The Tutor of History by a no-name publisher. Greta Rana, who was married to Madhukar Rana during my days as the Features Editor of The Rising Nepal, is doing well with her German translation of "A Place Beneath the Pipal Tree. The German title ´Im Schatten des Heiligen Baumes´ was published by Bastei Lübbe. The Germans love titles that begin with ‚In the Shadow Of…´ That´s why my collection of German poems bears the title "Im Schatten des Himalaya." And if you´re writing a dissertation don´t forget to use a catchy title like: "Something and something in der Spannungsfeld of etwas." They just love it when your theme lies in the field of tension between two antagonistic subjects. Sounds very academic doesn´t it?

Greta Rana´s is a love story between a monk named Rizi Sonam and a Sherpa girl Ang Maya. He wants to leave his monastery and marry her, but the abbot intervenes and makes her marry a rich man. A daughter named Diksung is born and she has an adventurous life. Did I tickle your fantasy?

I had a chat with Rita McCann of Ireland Literature about Irish poetry and then with a lady from The Guardian. Lisa Darnell, who normally does the book-section, wasn´t around but I got her e-mail. At Granta Books Angela Rose, who is responsible for rights, gave me Amber Dowell´s mail. There was a friendly lady with a London accent, like Mrs. Patel from Freiburg, dressed up like a female buccaneer in a scarlet coat and black hat with a feather, and she bore that aura of freedom, recklessness and was a delight. She had the allure of faraway fantasy lands, the beckoning whisper of a beautiful woman and the thrill of a duel till death. It was naturally pulp from the 1930s and ´40s. All for the price of a dime. This woman was plainly promoting L.Ron Hubbard´s fiction from the heydays of pulp-fiction, when people yearned for stories that would make them forget their problems, the way Bollywood films do for the Indian masses. This was a banquet of 153 stories. I bade her well and went out for fresh air. Sticky air at the Fair, with all those books, fuming and sweating human bodies, re-circulated stale, breathed air.

Outside, there were German boys and girls in gaudy costumes, hair bleached white or coloured black, with cobalt blue strains, perfect rouge or noir lipstick, short or long skirts, eyes with kajal looking cute. It was the teeny-weeny Manga-comic crowd. Sweet school-kids. Rather so at the Frankfurter Book Fair, I thought, than bottelion drink parties, where the aim is to conk out with alcohol, come what may. It was Pablo Picasso who said once: "The only thing I regret in life is that I never drew comics." And there they were: comic artists like Lewis Trondheim, Jason Lutes, Pierre Seron as well as Storm-artist Romano Molenaar and the crack team from the Simpsons, Bill Morrison and David Silverman. Yuki Kowalski, chief editor of Tokyopop was there, and so was Ramize Egner who created Chica dü lüks.

In the bus I met a charming platin blonde lady of Russian descent, Frau Baumann, who writes children´s books and works with the ladies of the Freiburger Foreigners´ Bureau. She also had a teenage daughter named Natasha. Ach, the name Natasha conjures up images of the protagonists of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Maxim Gorki, Vladimir Nabakov---authors I´d read in the foothills of the Himalayas during long wintry evenings and nights. She was real extroverted, had the Russian soul in her and expressed her disappointment that the Foreigners´ Bureau had invited a Russian writer from Stuttgart. She found it almost atrocious. I found nothing wrong with it. The more the merrier, nicht wahr?

Author Biography Information:

Satis Shroff is a writer living in Freiburg (Germany) and has written textbooks on Nepali: Sprachkunde for Germans (Horlemann Verlag, Bad Honnef) and has written for Nelles Verlag´s guidebook ´Nepal´(Munich), articles in The Christian Science Monitor, The Fryburger, The Rising Nepal, Radio Nepal, Himal Asia, the Nepalese Perspective and Nepal Information (Cologne). He has studied Medicine and Sozialarbeit in Freiburg and Creative Writing (Writers Bureau, Manchester). He is the published author of three books on www.Lulu.com: Im Schatten des Himalaya (book of poems in German), Through Nepalese Eyes (travelgue), Katmandu, Katmandu (poetry and prose anthology by Nepalese authors, edited by Satis Shroff). His lyrical works have been published in literary poetry sites: Slow Trains, International Zeitschrift, World Poetry Society (WPS), New Writing North, Muses Review, The Megaphone, The Megaphone, Pen Himalaya, Interpoetry. Satis Shroff is a member of "Writers of Peace," poets, essayists,novelists (PEN), World Poetry Society (WPS), Boloji and The Asian Writer.

He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. He is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Nepal´s literary heritage and culture in his writings and in preserving Nepal´s identity in Germany. Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize.

"I was extremely delighted with Satis Shroff´s work. Many people write poetry for years and never obtain the level of artistry that is present in his work. He is an elite poet with an undying passion for poetry." Nigel Hillary, Publisher, Poetry Division - Noble House U.K.