CLIFTON, N.J. (PRWEB) July 29, 2020
Born a Kurd in the city of Van in eastern Turkey, Aslan Demir aims to share the experiences of one of the world’s largest and most oppressed minorities through his writing. His shared background as a writer and poet, coupled with his deep desire to shed light on the persecution that Kurdish people in the Middle East have endured for centuries, allows him to write stories that are dramatic and serious with poetically beautiful undertones. This combination of styles may initially seem to clash, but Demir melds them together in a seemingly effortless manner that results in writing that builds tension and suspense when appropriate and then offers reprieve and peace through poetry to show the hope that still burns within Cell 77’s hero.
Cell 77 is a fictional story that is heavily inspired by real world events. It follows the harrowing persecution that a prominent Kurdish journalist must endure in modern-day Turkey, a country that is quick to jail dissidents that speak out against its government. The descriptions of her incarceration, release from prison, return to her home city, and eventual smuggling to Greece are depicted in riveting and suspenseful prose. Cell 77 is almost nonfiction considering how immersive it is, and how well it depicts the lives of thousands of innocent people in Turkey that are fighting for their lives both in the story and in real life.
Aslan Demir’s book is as much about the suffocating atmosphere of present-day Turkey as it is the personality and mindset of the protagonist. Her eventual release from prison is circumvented by the realization that she has simply moved from a small prison of concrete walls to a larger, open-air one. She is never truly free in her country of Turkey, and the urgency and desperation that rapidly mounts at this realization can be felt through the pages. Though fictional, she walks the path of thousands of other Turkish citizens that had the audacity to have opinions that differed from their government’s.
Aslan Demir is a writer and poet who has been published in various literary magazines including Stoneboat, The Finger, Noble/Gas Quarterly, and Atlas and Alice. He has a Masters in writing from Lindenwood University.
Title: Cell 77
ISBN: 9781682065273
127 pages, $16.95, July 2020
Distributed by: NBN - National Book Network
