Moris Farhi
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(Musa) Moris Farhi MBE (born 1935, Ankara, Turkey) has been vice-president of International PEN since 2001. He has kinship with Üzeyir Garih.
Mr Farhi is an author. He was chairman of the Writers in Prison Committee of PEN in Britain, 1994-97, and the corresponding committee of International PEN 1997-2000. He was appointed an MBE in 2001. He has written several novels, including Children of the Rainbow and Journey through the Wilderness.
Born in Ankara, Turkey, 1935 of Turkish-Jewish parents. Received B.A. in Humanities from Robert Academy, Istanbul, in 1954. Came to the UK the same year and trained at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He graduated in 1956 and settled in London. After a brief career as an actor, he took up writing.
[edit] Works
He has written many television scripts; a film, The Primitives; and a stage play, From The Ashes of Thebes. He is the author of the following novels:
- The Pleasure of Your Death (Constable, 1972)
- The Last of Days (Bodley Head & Crown, US, 1983)
- Journey Through the Wilderness (Macmillan/Picador, 1989)
- Children of the Rainbow (Saqi, 1999)
- Young Turk (Saqi 2004)
Children of the Rainbow has received two prizes: the “Amico Rom” from the Associazione Them Romano of Italy (2002); and the “Special” prize from the Roma Academy of Culture and Sciences in Germany (2003). The French edition of Young Turk (Jeunes Turcs) received the 2007 Alberto Benveniste Prize for Literature. His poems have appeared in many British, US and European publications and in the anthology of 20th Century Jewish Poets, Voices Within the Ark (Avon, US, 1979). He has also published short stories in anthologies and magazines in the UK, the US and Poland. His essay, The Courage To Forget, appeared in Index on Censorship (Vol.24, No.2, 2005). Another essay, God Save Us From Religion, is included in the collection, Free Expression is No Offence (Edited by Lisa Appignanesi, published by Penguin Books, 2005) A third essay, All History is the History of Migration, given at the “Know Your Place?” Conference in November 2005, was also published by Index on Censorship in 2006. To date his works have been translated into Arabic, Dutch, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Turkish. For the past twenty-five years or so, he has campaigned, from the ranks of English P.E.N.’s Writers in Prison Committee, for writers persecuted and/or imprisoned by repressive regimes. Between 1994-1997, he served as Chair of English P.E.N.’s WiPC; and between 1997-2000, as Chair of International P.E.N.’s Writers in Prison Committee. On June 16, 2001, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for “services to literature”. On November 2001, he was elected a Vice President of International P.E.N. He is a Fellow of both The Royal Society of Literature and The Royal Geographical Society.
He is married to Nina Farhi (née Gould), a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and has a stepdaughter, Rachel Sievers, a speech therapist.
[edit] Young Turk
His latest novel is Young Turk in which Farhi weaves together 13 short tales to tell a powerful story of Turkey just before, during, and after World War II
[edit] Plot
On the eve of war, people still believe in a Turkish culture that can accommodate any number of races and religions. But Hitler's march through Europe makes this an increasingly dicey proposition for the nation's Jews and the Turks who wish to stand by them. As Turkey begins to unravel, a cross-section of young Turks race toward adulthood in an increasingly polarized world, each in turn telling a piece of the country's beautiful and savage tapestry. In the luminous "Lentils in Paradise," two young boys find honest delight in the pleasures of the body, but soon discover that they can't be children forever after what they discover in the women's bathhouse. In "A Tale of Two Cities," a group of foolhardy teens embark on a plan to save their friend's relatives from persecution in Greece. The story is imbued with the tragedy of a doomed mission. Its honesty captures the ephemeral, sensual and often brutal process of becoming an adult as the book's haunting tone walks the line between a novel of ideas and an extended coming of age story. Against the backdrop of Nazism, in a multi-racial Turkey giving sanctuary to many of Europe’s fleeing Jews, a group of teenage friends struggles to understand events while reeling from (and relishing) the sexual and emotional discoveries of adolescence.
An alluring woman initiates Mustafa and his classmates in the carnal delights of rose petal jam; Musa discovers the hard facts of reaching manhood when he is expelled from the women’s baths; Bilal, a 14-year-old Jewish boy, sets off for Greece to rescue his mother’s sister; and a circus orphan known only as ‘Girl’ falls head over heels for the new trapeze artist . . .
Young Turk is a novel in thirteen positions. Reminiscent of Julio Cortazar and Italo Calvino, this is a wise, craftily spun and spine-tinglingly erotic tale of love, courage and the forging of conscience.
