Nation of Strangers is the conclusion of a decade-long odyssey.Article continues after advertisement
My ten-year saga began in 2016 when I wrote a book called Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy. Before the book, I’d enjoyed a successful career in my native Turkey for more than twenty years, working as a novelist, essayist, and journalist, with a regular column and, at one point, my own show on national television. Though
I’d previously spent some fragmented years abroad when my journalism got me into hot water, this time I could feel the walls were closing in on people like me – that is to say, critics of Erdoğan’s regime. So, when my Western publishers asked me to write about why my country was so “crazy,” I did. But I went further. I also wrote about how their countries were in danger of becoming insane sooner than they might think.
Not only had I begun to witness the erosion of democracy in Western nations just as it had once started in Turkey, but since my people were reduced to victims in their eyes, it was a matter of pride to tell the West: “You, too, will fail to save your country from fascism when your turn comes. You, too, will have to ask yourselves how your countries have become insane.” This marked the beginning of my odyssey, which many have called exile.
