PEN Sweden’s statement says Erdoğan was “deemed worthy of this year’s Tucholsky Award for the authorship she created anew and the language she used to break the prison of small truths”.

In PEN’s press conference, the statement said prominent author and human rights defender Aslı Erdoğan dealt with taboo topics and that “As a young author and one of the most prominent and controversial names in contemporary Turkish literature, she never stopped writing about Kurdish rights, the Armenian genocide, violence against women and the torture in Turkey’s prisons.”

The statement mentioned Erdoğan’s articles in daily newspapers advocating human rights and freedom of expression as well as her writing in novels and short stories, and said that her literary work was met with great interest both in Turkey and abroad, and was translated to several languages including Swedish.

A COUNTRY WHERE LITERATURE IS CHARGED AS TERRORISM

The statement included the information that Erdoğan was detained along with 25 newspaper workers in the raid on August 16 in Özgür Gündem newspaper, which was banned following charges of PKK propaganda, and was later arrested and is currently being held in prison without her vitally important medicine under inhumane conditions.

In his comments to the Swedish media on Erdoğan being awarded, PEN Sweden President Ola Larsmo said like so many important writers who got into trouble with totalitarian regimes in the past, Aslı Erdoğan broke the silence in the face of those with power with her new literature and continued: “She continues in the tradition of previous recipients of the Tucholsky Award, Nuruddin Farah, Svetlana Aleksijevitj and Masha. The fact that one of the most prominent writers in Turkey, a country where literature is charged as terrorism, is arrested without trial says all.”

HER INTERVIEW IN EVRENSEL WAS PUBLISHED IN SVENSKA DAGBLADET

One of the best selling newspapers of Sweden, the Svenska Dagbladet, published Nuray Sancar and Fatih Polat’s interview with Aslı Erdoğan, carried out through her lawyers and published in Evrensel newspaper on September 13 with the headline, “My strength comes from knowing I am speaking the truth”.

Journalist/writer Kurdo Baksi who translated the interview to Swedish said Aslı Erdoğan receiving the Tucholsky Award made him very happy and continued: “Aslı Erdoğan is dragged through Turkey’s prisons, but she receives important and meaningful awards abroad. Can Dündar and Erdem Gül were charged with treason and received awards as well. They received the Swedish Publishers Union Award. The situation in Turkey is the exact opposite. Those who don’t praise Erdoğan are imprisoned. This award given to Aslı is so meaningful. The international community has given the message that Aslı and other journalists and intellectuals in prisons are not alone. I hope Aslı Erdoğan is released at once and will attend the award ceremony to be held in Stockholm.”

Aslı Erdoğan will receive the Tucholsky Award of 150.000 Swedish Crowns in a ceremony to be held on November 15 in Stockholm, Sweden. PEN Sweden President Larsmo said he wishes Erdoğan to be released until then and be able to attend the award ceremony.

THE TUCHOLSKY AWARD

PEN Sweden has given one writer or journalist under oppression or in prison an award since 1984 to contribute to freedom of press and expression, in memory of German writer Kurt Tucholsky. Tucholsky’s books were burned in Nazi Germany and he applied for asylum in Sweden by the beginning of the 1930s. The author had fallen into depression after the Swedish government refused his political asylum claim and had committed suicide in 1935.

Asiye Güzel Zeybek, editor of Atılım and İşçinin Yolu journals, had received the Tucholsky Award in 2001, and Muharrem Erbey, lawyer and human rights defender who was in prison awaiting trial in the KCK case for 5 years, received it in 2014.