[Discussion] TALES FROM THE EXPAT HAREM

[sule tarakcioglu]

Contribute your voice to a new anthology of foreign women's
reflections on modern Turkey. Deadline: August 1, 2004

TALES FROM THE EXPAT HAREM: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey, edited
by Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Gokmen, to be published in
early 2005 by Citlembik Publishing, an Istanbul-based
Turkish/American publishing house. Nettleberry (www.nettleberry.com)
is their U.S. counterpart.

During Ottoman rule, the word 'harem' (from the word 'haram',
meaning sacred and forbidden) referred to both the population as
well as the living quarters of the foreign-born brides and servants
of the Turkish sultan. An intimate and necessarily confined
community of women, it was a place for sharing womanly wisdom and
cultivating Turkish cultural tradition.

In this non-fiction anthology we invoke a modern day Turkish harem
with its cacaphony of voices and shared female experience -- in the
sense that the female expatriate population is naturally cohesive
and isolated due to the process of assimilation.  Newcomers learning
to maneuver within a new set of variables and cultural boundaries
often experience a limitation of freedom: language barriers act as a
physical obstacle to travel and independence, cultural naivete
hinders social interaction, and ethnocentric rigidity impedes
dynamic experience.

Taking the reader on humorous and poignant journeys of cultural
contrast and discovery, our contributors break free of the confines
of the harem and touch the true heart of Turkey. Whether newly
arrived or well-established expatriates, or Turks repatriating to
their homeland after a long absence, all our contributors are
foreign brides of modern Turkey: wedded to its culture, embedded in
it even, and yet forever outsiders.

We are looking for high-quality personal essays, insightful flash
non-fiction and colorful travelogue--in English, 2,500 words or
less.  Unpublished work is preferred, although well-crafted
previously published work will be considered.  We will work with
unseasoned writers as long as you have a good and true tale to tell.
Please see the chapter breakdown and writing tips posted at our
website.

The editors are foreigners married to Turks. Ashman is an essayist
specializing in personal tales of cultural adventure, work appearing
worldwide from The Asian Wall Street Journal to The Village Voice.
Gokmen is a writer who often chronicles the people and culture of
Turkey, her home for the past decade. Currently she is an editor of
Time Out Istanbul.

For further information and to submit your work online please visit
the site:  www.expatharem.com

Inquiries can be sent to: info@expatharem.com