Writers urged to rally round Pamuk

Loose Leaves: As storm clouds gather for Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, The Western Writers' Centre - Ionad Scríbhneoirí Chaitlín…

Loose Leaves: As storm clouds gather for Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, The Western Writers' Centre - Ionad Scríbhneoirí Chaitlín Maude - is urging Irish writers to condemn the action taken against him by the Turkish authorities.

Pamuk, who won the 2003 International Impac Award for his novel, My Name is Red, has been indicted for remarks he made to a Swiss newspaper about the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces in 1915 to 1917 and the killings since 1984 of Kurds in the conflict between Kurdish separatists and Turkey. If convicted there's an extra penalty because he made the comments abroad. He could face up to three years in jail.

"The centre deplores any such Orwellian strictures on the freedom of any citizen to express his views, and especially when imposed upon writers and artists, whose job it is, or should be, in any democratic society, to criticise and act as part-conscience of society . . . Perhaps the US administration, for whom Turkey is an ally, might intervene, in the interests of democracy and freedom," said the Galway based writer's centre.

In the light of Turkey's desire to enter the EU - and the opposition to that in many quarters - Salman Rushdie sees this case as a a test of whether the union has any principles. "If it has its leaders will insist on charges against Orhan Pamuk being dropped at once." The trial is set for December 16th. Pamuk's memoir Istanbul : Memories and the City, got rave reviews this year - being described by veteran travel writer Jan Morris as "a declaration of his imaginative fusion with the city of his birth and lifelong residence: Istanbul, Constantinople of the sultans".

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Just why Turkey wants to penalise its most famous writer and clamp down so publicly on freedom of speech at this particular juncture, with EU entry still very much in the balance, remains a mystery.

Critical thinking

Ulysses may regularly have conferences devoted to it worldwide but it's not every day that serious tomes of criticism are accorded this kind of attention. However, in Dublin on November 5th a conference will mark the 20th anniversary of the publication of Terence Brown's Ireland: A Social and Cultural History 1922-1985 and Seamus Deane's Celtic Revivals: Essays in Modern Irish Literature 1880-1980 at the Mater Dei Institute of Education. A quarter of a century ago intellectual, cultural and social history were minor disciplines. Today they're flourishing, thanks in part to the Brown and Deane books. "These works have between them profoundly influenced the trajectory of Irish cultural and literary studies in the last two decades. They are, quite simply, unavoidable, even for those who wish to disagree with them," says conference organiser Conor McCarthy. The future of Irish criticism in the new century will be among the topics discussed, because as McCarthy says, "critique is one of the means by which a culture is mediated and reproduced - it's time for an assessment of the situation in Ireland". Brown of Trinity College Dublin and Deane of Notre Dame University will be speaking, as will Christopher Morash, Siobhan Kilfeather, Joe Cleary, David Dwan, Emer Nolan and Lionel Pilkington. For details telephone Conor McCarthy: 01-8376027 (ext 251) or e-mail conor.mccarthy@materdei.dcu.ie

Business brought to book

Inevitably the Man Booker prize hogs the autumn limelight but there are genres other than fiction and many other book prizes. Next month sees the award ceremony for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. The shortlist is John Battelle's The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture (Nicholas Brealey); Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Globalized World in the 21st Century (Penguin/Allen Lane ); Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner's Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Penguin/Allen Lane); Constantinos C Markides and Paul A Geroski's Fast Second: How Smart Companies Bypass Radical Innovation to Enter and Dominate New Markets (Jossey Bass/Wiley); Pietra Rivoli's The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power and Politics of World Trade (Wiley) and James B Stewart's Disneywar: The Battle for the Magic Kingdom (Simon & Schuster)

The winner, who will receive £30,000 (€44,326), will be announced on November 21st at the Saatchi Gallery in London. The runners up will each get £5,000 (€7,387).