Personal nuances of modern Turkey

Tales from the Expat Harem (Seal Press, 2006)

Foreword by Elif Shafak (Turkish editions only)

CULTURAL CONFLICT + DISCOVERY
As the Western world struggles to comprehend the paradoxes of modern Turkey, a country both European and Asian, forward-looking yet rooted in ancient empire, this critically-acclaimed collection invites you into the Turkey that thirty-two women from seven nations know.

ASSIMILATION STRUGGLES
Australian and Central American, North American and British, Dutch and Pakistani, our narrators demonstrate the evolutions Turkish culture has shepherded in their lives and the issues raised by assimilation into friendship, neighborhood, wifehood, motherhood.

[Hospitality] Delirious with influenza, a friendless Australian realizes the value of misafir perverlik, traditional Turkish hospitality, when she’s rescued from her freezing rental by unknown Anatolian neighbors bearing food and medicinal tea
[Family] A pregnant and introverted Irishwoman faces the challenge of finding her place in a large Black Sea clan
[Cultural Taboo] A Peace Corps volunteer in remote Eastern Turkey realizes how the taboos of her own culture color her perceptions about modesty and motherhood
[Femininity] A liberated New York single questions the gallant rules of engagement on the Istanbul dating scene, wondering whether being treated like a lady makes her less a feminist

AMBITIOUS STORYTELLERS
…from a Bryn Mawr archaeologist at Troy to the Christian missionary in Istanbul, clothing designers and scholars along the Aegean and the Mediterranean coastlines, a journalist at the Iraqi border, Expat Harem’s writers revisit their professional assumptions.

SPANS COUNTRY + 40 YEARS
Humorous and poignant travelogue takes you to weddings and workplaces, down cobbled Byzantine streets, into boisterous bazaars along the Silk Road and deep into the feminine powerbases of steamy Ottoman hamam bathhouses. Subtext illuminates journeys of the soul. Peruse the chapters.

ANACHRONISTIC TITLE = WESTERN STEREOTYPE + KINSHIP
Expat Harem notes the erroneous — yet prevalent — Western stereotypes about Asia Minor and the entire Muslim, while declaring the writers are akin to foreign brides of the Seraglio, the 15th century seat of the Ottoman sultanate:

Expat Harem writers are wedded to the culture of the land, embedded in it, yet alien.

Dogan Kitap 4th edition, with foreword by Elif Shafak

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From the introduction:

TRANSFORMING TURKEY = PERFECT FOR IDENTITY ADVENTURERS
Threshold to worlds East or West depending on which way one faces, Turkey is itself a unique metaphor for transition. Forming a geographic bridge between the continents of Europe and Asia and a philosophical link between the spheres of Occident and Orient, Turkey is neither one of the places it connects.

EXPAT HAREM WOMEN RECLASSIFY THEMSELVES
Foreign women on Turkish soil are neither what nor who they used to be, yet not fully transformed by their brush with Turkey. Aligned in their ever-shifting contexts, both Turkey and the expatriate share a bond of constant metamorphosis.

Expat Harem women are challenged to redefine their lives, definitions of spirituality, femininity, sensuality and self.

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One editor’s story behind the book: The Accidental Anthologist