The beat-era author William S. Burroughs may be dead, but that's not stopping an Istanbul prosecutor from investigating whether a Turkish translation of one of his books is corrupting the youth of Turkey (and it's not even "The Naked Lunch").
According to a recent report, the investigation was started after a report by the Turkish Prime Ministry’s "Council for Protecting Minors from Explicit Publications" charged the newly translated version of Burroughs's 1961 experimental novel "The Soft Machine" with “incompliance with moral norms” and “hurting people’s moral feelings.” The council also accused the novel of “lacking unity in its subject matter,” “incompliance with narrative unity,” for “using slang and colloquial terms” and “the application of a fragmented narrative style.” Ultimately, the report decided the book, written in a kind of cut-and-paste method “does not constitute a literary piece of work in its current condition.”
Lawyers for the book's Turkish-language publishers have said in their clients' defense that it's not up to the state to decide what is literature, particularly since "The Soft Machine" is not being marketed as a book for children. More details here.
Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.