Book Launch: Under the Shadow by Kaya Genç with Molly Crabapple

Turkey stands at the crossroads of the Middle East – caught between the West, ISIS, Syria and Russia, and governed by an increasingly forceful leader. Acclaimed writer Kaya Genç has been covering his country for the past decade. In Under the Shadow he meets activists from both sides of Turkey’s political divide: Gezi park protestors who fought tear gas and batons to transform their country’s future, and supporters of Erdogan’s conservative vision who are no less passionate in their activism. While talking to Turkey’s angry young people Genç weaves in historical stories, visions and mythologies, showing how Turkey’s progressives and conservatives take their ideological roots from two political movements born in the Ottoman Empire, fueled by a determination to make their country more democratic. He shows a divided society coming to terms with the 21st Century, and in doing so, gets to the heart of the compelling conflicts between history and modernity in the Middle East.