This event is part of Letters Home, our series of curated programs celebrating the many ways we imagine, remember, and return to home from afar.
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In Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century, Turkish journalist and novelist Ece Temelkuran explores these shifting meanings of belonging through a series of heartfelt letters addressed to the world at large. Since going into exile in 2016 after criticising Turkey’s government, Temelkuran has reflected on the experience of losing one’s home and finding oneself a stranger in the world. Join us for a conversation about exile and belonging, the ties that bind us to places and people, and the possibilities of creating a sense of home beyond borders.
Join Rachel Khoo in conversation with Lindsey Tramuta for a discussion about creativity, food, and the transformative power of small beginnings.
About the speaker:
Ece Temelkuran is an award-winning Turkish writer, political thinker, and public speaker whose work has been published worldwide. Her novels, Women Who Blow on Knots and The Time of Mute Swans, have been published in several languages and adapted to the stage. Temelkuran’s two political essays, Deep Mountain: Across the Armenian–Turkish Divide and Turkey: The Insane and Melancholy, explore the connection between the personal and political. After she left her country in 2016, Temelkuran began writing in English. Her first book in this language, How to Lose a Country: The Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, received international praise. Her second, Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century, offers “a way out from the political and moral insanity” that is ushered by the global rise of fascism. Ece Temelkuran has lived in Beirut, Tunis, Oxford, Paris, and Zagreb. She is currently based in Berlin and is on the advisory board of Progressive International and DemocracyNext.
