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Me Too movement rattles Turkey’s literary world

Turkish literary scene becomes a new battlefront in the women’s movement as female writers, editors and translators pour out their stories of abuse and one author commits suicide.
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“He sent me a photo of his penis, peeking from green and purple plaid boxers, with the message ‘see how it stiffens at the sound of your voice … you must come … and take care of it,’” an author known as “Franz Kafka of Turkey” sexted a novice writer 12 years ago. This gruesome scene in a detailed account of author Nazli Karabiyikoglu is one of the many testimonies by women who took the pen — and the keyboard — to name and shame sexual predators in Turkey’s literature and publishing sectors.

Ever since Dec. 8, the hashtag uykularinizkacsin (liberally translated as "loseyoursleep") has turned an accusing finger at half a dozen male authors with skeletons in their closets. The disclosures were followed by a flurry of recalled awards, publishing house statements on “parting ways with the men charged” and, tragically, the overnight suicide of one of the men accused. After a week, this belated Me Too movement in Turkey shows no signs of slowing. On the contrary, there are signals that it could spill over into academia and the world of journalism.

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