Re:A Turkish physicist wrote research papers in prison
by benbreen on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @03:53PM
(#16277444)
I spent a memorable day once with a Turkish acquaintance who was also doing archival research in Lisbon when I was doing my PhD work there. Her mother came to visit and we walked all around the city.
My acquaintance's mother and father both turned out to be prominent Turkish intellectuals. I asked her mother how she'd met her father - it turned out they met in prison. She said that was a pretty common origin story for Turkish academic couples of her generation, because that was where all the smart people were.
Sadly I couldn't find a translation in English, but the original in Turkish is also linked
http://www.zeit.de/2017/43/meinungsfreiheit-tuerkei-haeftlin... http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2017-10/meinungsfreiheit-tuerkei-h...
The first paragraph is a rather good summary
>Do you know where the literacy rate in Turkey is highest? In Silivri. Because there is Turkey's largest prison, and it is full of writers, journalists, scientists and intellectuals. There is a fairly extensive prison library there, which is steadily growing, as each inmate author asks his publisher for donations or donates his books to the library at the end of his stay. When I was there I happily discovered four of my books in the catalog. Imagine, you are behind bars as "offenders" and your books are there to "help the offenders better them self". Another piece of black humor in this matter: Once a prisoner asked for a book, the librarian's answer was: "We do not have the book, but its author is here."