By Nermin Mollaoğlu • In the wake of Orhan Pamuk’s Nobel and Turkey’s appearance as Guest of Honour at the 2008 Frankfurt Book Fair, Turkish publishers have recently taken a greater interest in foreign rights and in expanding their international presence. • 50% of books published in Turkey are translations, and agencies like Kalem are now a bigger part of …
Can Literature Festivals Change a Nation’s Reading Habits?
By Chip Rossetti In today’s lead story, Istanbul-based literary agent Nermin Mollaoğlu talks about her own background in Turkish publishing that led her to open her own literary agency, as well as her high hopes for the annual Tanpinar Literature Festival — the first of its kind in Turkey. One of the stated goals of the festival is to encourage …
Talking Turkey: Istanbul’s Amy Spangler on Founding a Literary Agency Abroad
By Amy Marie Spangler ISTANBUL: When I arrived in Istanbul in August of 1999, just a few months after graduating from college, I had not planned to launch a literary agency in Turkey. My plan was to brush up on my Turkish for a year before pursuing graduate studies in Germanics. (Sounds odd, I know, but I wanted to focus …
What Turkish Authors Do You Want Translated?
By Edward Nawotka Today’s lead story describes Amy Spangler’s experiences launching a literary agency in Istanbul and the challenges of selling Turkish authors abroad. Asked what some of her top clients are that she’d like more attention for, she replied: Hatice Meryem, whose book May I Have a Fly-Sized Husband to Watch Over Me, is being published in Germany by …
What’s Bedeviling Paris’ Salon du Livre?
By Olivia Snaije PARIS: It should be an occasion for celebration — it’s the 30th anniversary, after all — but Paris’ Salon du Livre opens today in a climate of sniping and mudslinging. It’s “the fair we love to hate,” quipped Nicolas Gary on his literary blog, Actualitté. For years, French publishers have been complaining that the fair is neither …
Turkish Publisher Selçuk Altun’s Second Act
By Edward Nawotka ISTANBUL: Selçuk Altun understands what it takes to market a novel. As the former executive chairman of YKY (Yapi Kredi Publications), one of Turkey’s largest and most prestigious publishers, he knew that if he wanted to bring his books to an audience outside Turkey, he’d have to do it on his own. So in 2007 he paid …
Bonus Material: Turkey’s Perpetual Publishing Crisis
By Edward Nawotka In 2010, Istanbul, Turkey will serve as a European Capital of Culture, along with Essen, Germany and Pécs, Hungary. The selection gives the country an opportunity to show off its historical heritage, even if, according to Selçuk Altun — novelist and former executive chairman of YKY (Yapi Kredi Publications) — the current literary life is somewhat lacking. …