Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey

2.5 stars

I read the first 12 stories, and that's about as much as I cared to read. It's not that I disliked the stories, or what they had to say about the experiences of these women, it's that I didn't find anything compelling about them. They were all generally interesting in a bland sort of way; maybe a factoid here or a snippet of description there will surface in my memory some day, but there was nothing that I truly want to remember. Time for this reader to move on.

I picked up this book expecting, as is often the case with an anthology, that I would enjoy a proportion of these stories and dislike an equal number. I was pleasantly surprised to find this one of the best curated and edited non-fiction short story collections I have read.

The main points which contributed to the success of this collection are:
The structure of the book It is organised in to sections which group stories of a similar topic. Examples are Kervansaray (stories related to historic places and with ‘guides'); Hamam (stories related to the age old bath houses) Henna'd Hands (stories about weddings); all up there are nine of these sections, each with two to five stories.

The lack of repetition It is carefully edited to ensure that while there are some similarities in the stories there was no direct repetition, but also nothing simple omitted. To explain further, even the simple statements setting the scene for the most common places - the bazaar, the hamam etc are included once, but not in each story of that section.

The inclusion of non-American authors While the majority of authors were American, there were two Dutch authors, an Australia, an Irish author and one from Britain. Authors included those from different background who had lived in the USA, eg a Pakistani born author who had lived in UAE and the USA; a Guatemalan author who had lived in the USA before Turkey. This made the comparisons with Turkish life much more varied.

The willingness of the authors to share their embarrassment and how they learned from their mistakes This is always appreciated by the readers - seeing that it wasn't all easy and the authors didn't all manage fine. There is some naivety in some of the stories, but not many, and more than anything this was just amusing.

The exploration of Turkish Islam From the couple of times I have been to Turkey it is apparent that the Islam of Turkey has its differences from other places in the Middle East. This book explores relatively gently, without offense, and explains some of those differences, and how the Turks work around some of the restrictions Islam generally imposes.

The positive light that the writing puts on Turkey There is no doubt that the stories selected have shone a positive light on Turkey. Mostly this revolves around Turkish hospitality, and not many people who have visited Turkey would fail to be impressed with what is genuine willingness to help, discuss and share. This is a feature of so many of these stories, and weaves a positive narrative throughout.

So probably I am not the target market for this book - a feminine viewpoint of the Turkish culture from primarily women marrying into that culture, dealing with the confusion and often unusual expectations of them from mothers' in law and extended families. (Not all the authors are married to Turkish men, but for most this is the story line.) There are a few stories that a female audience may take more appreciation from than I did, but overall the content was informative, varied and interesting. As an aside, it was interesting that many of these stories are not contemporary with the publishing date (2006), some dating back a few decades to the 60's or 70's, although most were in the 90's and early 2000's. This variance only added to the book for me.

A factor that worked in favour of this book for me, was reading it relatively slowly - a chapter a day, or two at most - at lunchtimes or breaks from work. This spread the impact a bit I guess, and allowed a bit of time to absorb some of the stories before moving into the next.

4.5 stars, rounded up.