Zabel Yessayan’s account of the 1909 massacres of Armenians in Adana

The latest podcast is with Judith Saryan, who edited a new English edition of Zabel Yessayan’s account of a trip to Adana in the aftermath of pogroms targeting Armenians there in 1909.

Download the podcast or listen below:

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Read my Hurriyet Daily News review of “In the Ruins: The 1909 Massacres of Armenians in Adana” (AIWA).

Here’s an interview from last year with translator Jennifer Manoukian, discussing Yessayan’s remarkable life and work.

Here’s another piece I wrote last year for Al Monitor from a crumbling station on the Armenian side of the closed Turkey-Armenia border. The immediate political dynamics have changed since then but it may still be an interesting read. View photos I took of the station here.

Finally, let me flag up my newly opened Patreon account – Through it you can support the Turkey Book Talk podcast by making a monetary donation, large or small, on a per episode basis. Check it out. Many thanks to my first supporter Sera Aleksandra Marshall.

Mustafa Gurbuz on ‘rival Kurdish movements in Turkey’

The latest Turkey Book Talk podcast is with Mustafa Gürbüz, the author of “Rival Kurdish Movements in Turkey: Transforming Ethnic Conflict” (Amsterdam University Press).

Apologies for the delay in dropping this latest pod. I’ve had a technical nightmare.

Download the podcast or listen below.

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Here’s my review of the book at Hürriyet Daily News. Here’s the interview in written form.

Follow Mustafa on Twitter.

Here’s another interview I did with him from last year about his research on the outlawed Kurdish Islamist militant group Hizbullah.

Finally, reposting my recent podcast with Frederike Geerdink discussing the Kurdish issue.

Şakir Dinçşahin on the life and times of Niyazi Berkes, 1908-1988

Here’s my conversation with Şakir Dinçşahin about his book on the life and times of Turkish intellectual Niyazi Berkes.

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You can also now subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast on Stitcher. Alternatively subscribe via iTunes or via PodBean.

Here’s my review of “State and Intellectuals: The Life and Times of Niyazi Berkes” (Rowman) at the Hürriyet Daily News.

If the issues discussed are your thing, check out this interview from last year with Andros Lamprou, who wrote an interesting book on the People’s Houses.

Also worth plugging this piece I wrote a couple of years ago on Mahmut Makal and his book “Bizim Köy” (Our Village), on his experiences as a teacher at a Village Institute in the 1940s.

Frederike Geerdink on Turkey’s Kurdish question

This week’s podcast is with Frederike Geerdink, author of “The Boys are Dead: The Roboski Massacre and the Kurdish Question in Turkey” (Gomidas).

We chat about her time as a journalist in the Kurdish-majority city Diyarbakır, her deportation from Turkey last year, and the troubled history/present of the issue in the wake of the collapse of the peace process last summer.

Download the podcast, or listen below:

Here’s my review of the book at Hürriyet Daily News.

Subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast via iTunes or via PodBean.

Follow Frederike Geerdink on Twitter.

Added bonus: I’ve dug out this interview from last year with sociologist Cem Emrence, co-author of “Zones of Rebellion: Kurdish Insurgents and the Turkish State” – quite a thought-provoking book.

Ryan Gingeras on ‘Atatürk: Heir to an Empire’

This week I spoke to author Ryan Gingeras on his new biography of Turkey’s founding father, “Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: Heir to an Empire” (Oxford University Press).

Download the podcast.

Or just listen here:

Here’s an edited transcript of the interview.

And here’s my review of the book (which is highly recommended).

 

As I mentioned in the podcast, here’s a link to an interview I did with Ryan last year about another of his books, “Heroin, Organized Crime, and the Making of Modern Turkey.”

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Kaya Genç talks Istanbul writing

Happy New Year!

First Turkey Book Talk pod of the year is with novelist Kaya Genç, the editor of “An Istanbul Anthology” (AUC Press), a new selection of classic writing on Istanbul by classic names including Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

Happily, I’ve finally picked up a decent mic so the podcasts should now be more listenable. Hooray!

Download the podcast.

Listen/subscribe via Podbean.

Here’s text of interview at the Hürriyet Daily News.

And here’s my review of the book.

Follow Kaya Genç on Twitter.

Subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast via iTunes or PodBean.

Nilgün Önder on the economic transformation of Turkey since 1980

This week’s podcast is with Nilgün Önder of the University of Regina, who joined to discuss her new book “The Economic Transformation of Turkey: Neoliberalism and State Intervention” (IB Tauris).

It’s a great and detailed book on some of the paradoxes of the economic reforms passed after Turkey’s military coup of 1980 – rather than rolling back, the authority of the state was substantially deepened by the reforms.

Download the podcast here. Or listen/subscribe via PodBean.

Here’s a transcript of the interview at Hürriyet Daily News.

And here’s my review of the book.

Subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast via iTunes, PodBean, or Soundcloud.

Thanks for listening!

Lastly, apologies for the dodgy sound quality in these first few podcasts. I’ve got a new mic in the post so that should go some way to sorting it out.