Front Row

As part of Radio 4's Reading Europe season, Kirsty Lang explores Turkish literature in Istanbul, talking to leading writers including Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk.Critics Kaya Genc and Nagihan Ibn Haliloglu discuss how the Turkish literary scene compares to our own: what are the bestselling books, and how are writers dealing with the current political situation, given Turkey has imprisoned more writers recently than any other country. Orhan Pamuk on his latest novel The Red-Haired Woman (Radio 4's current Book at Bedtime), and its themes of authoritarianism and the clash between the old and new Turkeys. Since being sacked from her job as one of Turkey's most-read newspaper columnists because of her political views, Ece Temelkuran has concentrated on her career as a novelist, including writing the bestselling Women Who Blow on Knots. Burhan Sönmez, the prize-winning Kurdish writer whose latest novel Istanbul, Istanbul, inspired by his own experience of torture and imprisonment, is about four political prisoners