Artist Profile
Aslı Erdoğan
Turkey
Current status: In Exile
“I am not a ‘novelist’ in the traditional sense of the word, nor even a storyteller,” Turkish novelist and human rights advocate Aslı Erdoğan said in a translated interview with Erkut Tokman for World Literature Today. “The most important element of my literature is language itself. The words reflect, invoke, and echo each other; obscure shadows gather in their corners, silence is filled with meaning as much as words are, while darkness and void are as signifying as light.”
Writer, journalist, and physicist—Aslı Erdoğan has done it all. After studying Computer Engineering at Boğaziçi University, Erdoğan went on to do research as a particle physicist at the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) and earned a subsequent degree in Physics from Boğaziçi. She began her Physics PhD program in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, before deciding to leave her scientific career to pursue writing.
Given her passion for words and literature, Erdoğan knew that she wasn’t destined to stay in academia full-time. She went on to become a bestselling writer and columnist, whose works are published in Turkish and have been translated into twenty other languages. She is the author of eight books and has received more than 35 awards, including the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize, the Simone de Beauvoir Award, the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation Award, the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, the Karl Tucholsky Award, the European Cultural Foundation Award and the SAIT FAIK Award. Her work has been adapted off the page -- into theater, classical ballet, radio, a short film, and even opera.
Erdoğan is best described as a painter with words, and she has created some of the most strikingly vivid colors in recent literature. One of her earlier novels, The City in Crimson Cloak, published in 1997, explores the identities and baggage that we all carry through life, the feeling of longing for and separation from the places we belong, and the modern political climate in Turkey. Many of Erdoğan’s narratives revolve around the intersections of being a human with a story to tell and living in an increasingly political world, where simply adhering to the status quo isn’t a possibility for most.
Her collection of short stories, The Stone Building and Other Places, revolves around one woman’s journey through illness, exile from her home, and a loved one’s imprisonment. Erdoğan never shies away from heavy topics in her art or in her work as a journalist.
“More and more, I forgo the main conventions of the art of storytelling as dramatization, personification, and identification,” Erdoğan told Tokman. “In … The Stone Building and Other Places, the narrators are not typical characters whose stories or even personalities have specified boundaries; they appear and disappear more like members of a tragic chorus and take turns stepping into their conjoined story. Or they are rather like empty shells in which different voices pass through, sometimes a scream, a roaring laughter, a tune.”
Through her creative work, Erdoğan paved her way into journalism and became a columnist for Özgür Gündem. Translated to “Free Agenda” in English, the paper was a frequent target of Turkish officials due to its extensive coverage of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s (no relation to Aslı) government began a smear campaign against Özgür Gündem by accusing their editorial team of actively promoting propaganda for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), known for its militancy and considered a terrorist organization in Turkey; however, the paper never showed explicit support for PKK or its mission, and Kurdish activists or language-rights advocates are often pegged with terrorism or national security accusations in Turkey via spurious association with the PKK. Given the government’s disdain and efforts to shut down its operations, Özgür Gündem existed under several names and editorial teams until its final relaunch in 2011 as the “Free Agenda.”
As a columnist for the paper, Erdoğan contributed hard-hitting op-eds on the failures of President Erdoğan’s regime and the European Union’s inaction in the face of strained Kurdish-Turkish relations. She continued to write for Özgür Gündem despite the government’s crackdowns and a travel ban she was subject to for her work. Erdoğan spoke openly about her distrust in the presidency and accused the authorities of acting beyond the words of law.
Upon its closure in 2016, the paper was succeeded by an online outlet called Özgürlükçü Demokrasi or ‘Libertarian Democracy.’ Erdoğan’s friends later began a daily ‘Ask Aslı’ column on her behalf.
“I don't believe in anything in this country any more,” Erdoğan told DW in an interview in 2016. “In a place where the rule of law no longer exists, they could throw me into prison tomorrow for the rest of my life. […] Perhaps the next thing they'll do is claim that I'm a secret agent. I haven't experienced such a mafia-like understanding of the state in 50 years.”
In saying this, Erdoğan might have predicted her fate: In August 2016, Erdoğan and a number of other journalists and employees at Özgür Gündem were arrested on alleged terrorism charges and accused of “destruction of state unity.” This string of detentions came one month after the failed coup attempt in July 2016, the aftermath of which included a state of emergency that allowed authorities to shut down the paper. As a result of her arrest, Erdoğan spent four months in pre-trial detention in an Istanbul prison, facing an “aggravated life sentence,” prior to her eventual acquittal and exile to Germany, where she resides today.
As revealed by PEN America’s second annual Freedom to Write Index, Turkey is one of the world’s most frequent jailers of writers and public intellectuals. Freedom of expression continues to come under attack by President Erdoğan’s increasingly restrictive administration, and international pressure critiquing Turkey’s repeated human rights violations continues to mount.
During her imprisonment, Erdoğan, who has several health ailments, was held in terrible conditions and regularly denied medical requests. She has since been diagnosed with systemic sclerosis, or CREST syndrome, a rare and devastating auto-immune disease that was exacerbated by her time in prison. While Erdogan was detained, and during the subsequent legal attacks, including an arbitrary travel ban that restricted Erdoğan’s mobility and ability to write freely, international organizations like PEN International and PEN America advocated for her freedom. After her travel ban was lifted in June 2017, Erdoğan escaped to Germany in self-imposed exile, while the trial continued intermittently for several years in her absence. In February 2020, Erdoğan was acquitted of all charges. However, the legal persecution only ebbed for a few months: In June 2020, a new prosecutor appealed her case to a higher court in Istanbul, and the acquittal was cancelled. She faces charges of sedition, membership of a terrorist organization, and use of propaganda. She now faces up to nine years in prison.
Despite these ongoing challenges and health difficulties, Erdoğan courageously continues to write from Germany and remains an icon of free expression and the fight for human rights in Turkey to readers and activists around the world. She recently spoke about her experiences in ARC’s Safety Guide for Artists, a resource to help artists understand and navigate risk.
To learn more about Erdogan, visit her website at https://aslierdogan.net/.
By Finley Muratova, May 2021. Finley Muratova is a New York University student, hailing from Moscow, Russia, and pursuing degrees in journalism and environmental studies. Finley’s work centers survivors of sexual violence and they’re passionate about improving the Title IX processes for victims of gender-based violence.