Maureen Freely's ENLIGHTENMENT Featured in Gently Read Literature Blog

Elaine Fowler Palencia explores "The Dirty Underbelly of one of the World's Great Cities" in this review of Maureen Freely's brilliant novel Enlightenment, now in paperback: "Like a radioactive matryoshka doll, Maureen Freely’s latest novel rises out of the Cold War history of Turkey, glowing with lethal secrets nested one inside another. To read it is to open the largest doll, then the smaller doll hidden inside it, and so on, in a search for the shape of truth.

The combination of narrative voices manifests this layered quality. A professor at the University of Warwick, Freely has published articles on Turkish politics and is the English translator of Pahmuk, who was indicted for the crime of “insulting Turkishness;” i.e., daring to mention to a reporter the “secret” of the Armenian genocide. Like M, Freely grew up in Istanbul and attended Robert College (as did Pahmuk), where her father taught. The author of several novels and nonfiction books, she writes clear, visual prose that bathes the reader in the sights and feel of Istanbul. Her well-known wit flashes amid the dark mysteries of international politics-as-usual as, with a pen dipped in irony and long-simmering indignation, she probes the dirty underbelly of one of the world’s great cities, suspended as it is between east and west, like the “Pasha’s library,” William Wakefield’s CIA lookout post above the Bosphorus. This novel will appeal to fans of thrillers and mysteries, the general literary reader, and those particularly interested in Turkish politics. A surprise but satisfying ending awaits you."

Maureen Freely's ENLIGHTENMENT an "Important Tale of Family and Politics"

Vikram Johri offers a consideration of Maureen Freely's Enlightenment in the St. Petersburg Times: "In spite of Turkey's claims to being a Muslim nation with the values and freedom befitting a European democracy, the truth is that the Turkish state has grown increasingly intolerant of dissent in any form. In 2006, Turkish Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk was charged with "insulting Turkishness" for referring to the 1915 Turkish genocide of Armenians. It is in this suspect climate that Maureen Freely, Pamuk's English translator, sets her novel Enlightenment. The story begins with the arrival of Jeannie Wakefield in Istanbul. The daughter of a CIA agent, Jeannie joins a group of left-wing students out of youthful curiosity and falls in love with Sinan, a charismatic young man. Then one of the group is identified as a spy of the secret police. He is chopped up and his body thrown into the Bosphorus. This has devastating consequences for the group, most of whom are arrested and tortured by the secret police. Jeannie, however, manages to escape to America. She returns many years later and reignites her love with Sinan, resulting in marriage and the birth of a child. But this is only the beginning of fresh trouble. After 9/11, Sinan's left-wing past returns to haunt him. A slew of disappearances follow, and the web of intrigue gets deeper. What role did Jeannie's father play in getting Sinan into trouble? Is Jeannie a CIA informant or just another victim of the state's repression machine? As the book draws to a nail-biting finish, ties of love and family provide obscure pointers to political affiliations and the machinations of statecraft. However, Enlightenment is an important work. At a time when the European Union is seriously considering granting Turkey membership, the poor democratic and human rights record of the nation, which comes through in this book, should make European leaders wary.