For many in the West and elsewhere, Turkey remains an enigma. An internationally acclaimed book provides a useful and provocative key to understanding the people and culture of Turkey. The nonfiction anthology Tales From the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey opens a window on the country as experienced by 32 expatriate women from seven nations – revealing the inner-workings of this complex land and people, and the often resulting clash with Western ideas and traditions.

Recommended to millions of travelers worldwide by National Geographic Traveler magazine and the guidebook Lonely Planet Turkey, the collection spans the entire country and four decades in tales from contributors across the world: North and Central America, Australia, Britain and Ireland, Holland and Pakistan. The storytellers came here for a myriad of reasons – as women pursuing studies or work, a belief, a love, an adventure. Whether an archaeologist at Troy, a Christian missionary in Istanbul, a Peace Corps volunteer in Erzurum, a journalist on the Iraqi border or a broken-hearted girl in Bursa, each felt an affinity for the country and its people.

Elif Shafak, the award-winning Turkish novelist (The Saint of Incipient Insanities, 2004) and feminism and Near Eastern studies scholar at the University of Arizona, has written the foreword to the Turkish language edition, Türkçe Sevmek. Shafak describes the collection as "thought-provoking," and notes that "the book successfully transcends the cultural stereotypes so deeply-embedded in perceptions of the Eastern harem, while probing the wonderfully intricate relation between the limitlessness of female venture and the limitlessness of portable homelands.”

Editors Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Gökmen sat down to discuss their literary release, which scholars have placed in the tradition of The Turkish Embassy Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, its foreign female wisdom about Turkey reminiscent of that 18th century writer. Ashman, who is married to a Turk and has lived in Istanbul for four years is best known as a cultural essayist whose work has appeared worldwide in publications like the Asia Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong and the Village Voice in New York City. Gökmen, also married to a Turk, is a 12-year resident of Turkey and the Development Director at Istanbul International Community School.

What made you select such a provocative title?

Ashman: We wanted to reclaim the concept of the Eastern harem – long the subject of erroneous Western stereotype, like Turkey itself. Much like the many imported brides of the Ottoman sultans, we consider our writers inextricably wedded to Turkish culture, embedded in it, though forever foreign.

Gökmen: Our expat harem is conjured by the shared circumstances of being foreign-born and female in a land rich in harem tradition. The metaphor is quite apt when you consider how confined expatriate women here can be, particularly those newly-arrived. Perhaps they aren’t constricted by physical walls of the harem, but the virtual walls are often there, formed by the initial lack of Turkish language skills, undeveloped understanding of the culture, or even the staunch ethnocentricities that some of us clung to like security blankets when we first arrived. The title may be willfully anachronistic, but these women have modern lives and modern concerns – pursuing families, businesses, buying properties, and becoming Turkish citizens.

How does the book differ from other travel memoirs?

Gökmen: We feel that this anthology is part of an emerging worldwide genre that should be called "expatriate literature" –writing about life from outside one’s homeland does not necessarily mean that one is writing from a state of travel. This is not a collection of travel stories. These women are coping with life in a foreign culture.

Ashman: Our narrators demonstrate the evolutions Turkish culture has shepherded in their lives: assimilation into friendship, neighborhood, wifehood and motherhood. Much weightier real-life issues than often tackled in travel themes!

Gökmen: Expatriate literature is a hugely resonant genre in this age where so many people are globally-mobile and must repeatedly re-establish themselves in the contexts of new countries and new cultures. We are not tourists here, and neither are our contributors. We are all people who need meaningful access to our new surroundings.

How did you find the contributors?

Gökmen: In an international-women’s writing group in Istanbul, we realized we were all writing about our Turkish experiences. Collected, they might begin to piece together the puzzle of Turkey. So we called for submissions through expatriate groups, writing groups, women’s groups, and foreign groups associated with Turkey, like the Peace Corps alumni (‘Arkadaşlar’).

Ashman: We heard from over 100 people from the worldwide diaspora of foreign women whose lives have been touched by Turkey. Over the last year we worked with many, most of them not professional writers, to fashion a personal tale that revealed as much about the woman and her own culture as the country she uncovered.

Gökmen: Because Turkey has such an emotional hold on so many expats, we all tend to have a proprietary feeling about how the country is portrayed, and that meant a lot of very strong feelings. Most were overwhelmingly positive, but naturally some were also negative.

Ashman: We only asked that the story be honest and balanced. We looked for a certain depth of understanding about both the Turkish culture and the writer’s own cultural assumptions. We asked, “What did this experience teach you about Turkey, and what did it show you about yourself?” This was difficult for some writers, who were not comfortable with revealing themselves. In the end, we couldn’t include a tale if the writer wasn’t able to face her own foibles.

Gökmen: You will see in the book people candidly experiencing crises-- of conscience, religion or physicality. It is in the resolution of the crisis that they come to understand their own role in the conflict of cultures.

Who is the audience for this book?

Gökmen: People currently living in Turkey or who know the place through work or travel enjoy reading this anthology and passing it on to their peers, or sharing it with friends and relatives back home. It’s a handbook to the country and can go a long way in explaining Turkey to others. This book gives voice to the trials, delights and common experiences that so many of us have had.

Ashman: The consensus is that often once a person gets to know a bit about Turkey, it is the beginning of a lifelong interest, whether for political, cultural or personal reasons. Of course, there are also the subsidiary audiences, people who will find this book valuable for reasons other than pure amusement, or to relive their experiences.

Gökmen: Multinational corporations with operations in Turkey, embassies, consulates and tourism organizations are now using this book as a cross-cultural training tool and even as a promotional vehicle. It became a #1 English-language national bestseller in Turkey in 2006, and in December 2006 was recommended to readers in 180 countries by the International Herald Tribune newspaper as one of the top 4 books to read about Turkish culture. In January the UK’s largest newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, called the book wonderful and wrote, “Be ready to book a flight to Istanbul afterwards.”

Ashman: We envisioned it developing a positive image of Turkey abroad and as the editors of a book which contributes to the global understanding of Turks and Turkey, we received the Daughters of Ataturk 2006 Women of Distinction Award in November 2006. Additionally, the anthology is now catalogued by more than 122 university, public and private libraries worldwide, and is being studied in at least 4 North American universities and even a private American high school. An excerpt from the book has also been part of the social studies curricula in the 10,000 American schools which subscribe to the educational magazine World & I. We are proud to add to the conversation about Turkey.

How does the tourism industry use the book?

Ashman: We think it’s a useful tool for operators both outside of Turkey and within. We’re on the recommended reading lists of cultural tour operators in the UK and the US, like Rick Steves and Peter Sommer. Expat Harem is also being recommended by readers to their fellow travelers at sites like Turkeytravelplanner.com, Tripadvisor.com, and Virtualtourist.com.

Gokmen: A local tour operator here in Istanbul is currently creating a series of Expat Harem branded tours, so that readers of the book can travel to the country and experience the land as our writers know it. Other Turkish tourism companies have approached us to give presentations to incoming corporate visitors.

Ashman: And since the book is also a lasting and shareable souvenir of an Anatolian trip, it definitely needs to be made available in tourist areas, on cruise ships and along the routes of tour buses…the bookshops at museums and sites like the Underground Cistern, and the Topkapi Palace. It would fly off the shelves! We encourage people in the industry who want to get involved to contact us through our website (www.expatharem.com).

On your Spring 2006 North American book tour, who was your major audience there?

Ashman: We had a diverse audience, which shows how many people the book speaks to! In 22 cities across the United States we spoke at consulates and cultural festivals, to business and social groups, NGOs and academic conferences, in independent and major chain bookstores and to individual bookclubs. We met with 800 fellow Turkey enthusiasts including diplomats, businesspeople, academics, travelers, journalists, filmmakers, cultural trainers and lovers of expatriate literature.

Gokmen: We were edified when the book became a #1 regional bestseller in America during our tour, and later ranked among the top ten national bestsellers in the Middle East travel category. In January it became a #1 bestselling book about Turkey in the national chain Barnes & Noble.

Ashman: We have Demet Sabancı Çetindoğan to thank for helping to sponsor our American tour. Without the help of involved Turkish business leaders like her, this successful promotion of Turkish culture throughout the U.S. would not have been possible. We’d like to take the book on tour in the UK and Europe as well this year.

Did the book change any preconceived ideas the readers had about Turkey?

Gokmen: Absolutely. Many readers told us they feel that the country is more approachable now that they have shared in the experiences of our writers, and witnessed the gentility of the culture. We met one reader in New York who was convinced not to take a Turkish vacation to due to the negative misperceptions of all those around her. After reading the book, she rues the cancellation of that trip and has vowed that Turkey will definitely be her next vacation destination.

Ashman: We’ve even been visited by readers who booked flights after reading the book, people who not only changed their minds about the country, they changed their travel plans! Expat Harem gives them the sense that they too can discover the warm-hearted Turkey in our book.

Given the international success of the book, are there plans for more book-related projects?

Ashman: We continue to aim to bring the Expat Harem experience to new audiences, by resuming our Turkey-wide touring, and by developing a narrative documentary of the book for American television and we’ve proposed it to the Istanbul Biennial 2007.

Gokmen: We’re also collaborating with scholars on symbiotic projects to illustrate the historical and contemporary significance of foreign female views of the Near East. In addition, we’ve given talks on cultural sensitivity for exchange programs, and have been invited to participate in Turkish cultural festivals in different countries. We welcome these initiatives and are happy to participate in projects that further intercultural understanding. We also continue to receive invitations from the diplomatic missions in Turkey to give presentations to their personnel.

Ashman: And we are of course pursuing the possibility of more foreign language editions of Expat Harem since we want to share what we know about the country and culture with everyone, not just people who read in English or Turkish.

Tales From the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey (Doğan Kitap 2005 in Turkey, Seal Press 2006 in North America). Available from all major bookstores and online sites.