Turkey to star at book fair despite writers' rows

FRANKFURT, Oct 5 (Reuters) Turkey will be the featured country at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2008, a choice that could invite controversy after two recent court cases raised questions about freedom of expression in the European Union candidate.

The fair could stir up even more debate as it courts China as a potential guest for 2009, with fair officials suggesting that the sensitive topics of Taiwan and Tibet would have to be part of the programme's focus in such an eventuality.

Turkish publishers consider the honour a chance to shift the spotlight from the 2006 court cases to its cultural heritage and the 20,000 books published each year in the country.

''We hope this transition phase will be faster and maybe by 2008, we will not talk about these issues any more,'' said Hayati Bayrak, president of the Turkish publishers association, in an interview today translated by a deputy, Mustafa Dogru.

''We are in favour of freedom of expression,'' Bayrak added.

''Those authors who were in court, you can find their books and their pictures here at our stand now.'' A judge last month cleared prominent novelist Elif Shafak of insulting Turkish identity in a passage from her book about the massacres of Armenians during Ottoman rule.

She had faced up to three years in jail if convicted for comments made in her novel ''The Bastard of Istanbul''.

Earlier in the year Turkey's most famous novelist Orhan Pamuk also went on trial for insulting ''Turkishness'' after he told a Swiss newspaper that nobody in Turkey dared mention the Armenian slaughter. The case was dropped on a technicality.

Turkey denies claims that 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a systematic ''genocide'' in World War One. But it is under pressure from the European Union to change an article in the penal code that forbids insulting the Turkish identity.

''I have seen Turkey's booth this year, and there are some historical falsifications in the books they published, but we don't mind that they will be the honoured guest because the historical truths will be proved,'' said Vahram Avagyan, head of publicity for Zangak, one of Armenia's largest publishers.

When asked if the book fair wanted to send a signal to Turkey about freedom of speech, Juergen Boos, the fair's director, said: ''Yes, of course.'' Pamuk welcomed what he hoped would be a fresh wave of attention from the global publishing community.

''After so many years of Turkey attending the Frankfurt Book Fair it is very good news, because Turkish literature is trying, with hesitant steps, to walk in the international arena,'' he told Reuters.

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