Tim Leffel’s Cheapest Destinations

Life in Turkey, with Ashman and Gokmen

Today I had the good fortune of meeting the lovely and articulate editors of Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey. It’s a fine book that I just reviewed for Perceptive Travel. Click here and scroll down to the third one.

I once spent about six weeks traveling through Turkey, from the European part down to Antakya, then worked as an English teacher for many more months in a suburb of Istanbul. It was the dead of winter much of the time, complete with coal smoke and a lack of sun, in an apartment that was probably the most spartan place I’ve ever lived, but I loved every day of it. It’s a place like no other, mostly because of the hospitality, warmth, and zest for life of the Turks themselves.

Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Gokmen are currently away from their adopted home of Turkey, traveling around the U.S. to promote their book. They stopped in my home town and had a talk and reception at CAO Cigars–owned by a Turkish family. Some fine borek and baklava on top of the smell of fine smokes.

It was an interesting discussion of how the book came about, why it has struck a chord, and why it’s such a great window into Turkish life and culture. They’ve done an impressive job of editing (besides contributing two stories) and obviously put lots of love into it. If you are going to spend any time in Turkey or have any desire to live there someday, this is an essential read. Even if you’ll never make it there, however, the 29 stories in here offer the best view around of a country that is a mystery to most North Americans.

The Expat Harem web site
The Expat Harem blog