İstanbul’s Tanpınar Literature Festival opens fourth year

İTEF 2012’s program, held under the main theme “City and Fear,” will also expand into three more Turkish provinces after the four-day İstanbul stint wraps up on Thursday. Ankara, İzmir and Hatay will be hosting the festival from Oct. 4-7.

The festival’s packed program includes book recitals, panel discussions, workshops, book-signing events and literature parties.

Internationally acclaimed authors visiting İstanbul for the festival include Colombian novelist Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Britain’s Louis de Bernières, Turkey’s Hakan Günday, Finnish crime novelist Leena Lehtolainen, Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin and Israeli writer Etgar Keret, among others.

This year’s festival offers two special projects called “Manchester Letters” -- which features the chronicles of an online correspondence between Turkish author Nermin Yıldırım and her British peer Jenn Ashworth -- and “Tramlines” -- a writer-in-residence program covering eight European cities. Prague-based author Jana Sramkova and her İstanbulite peer Hande Altaylı are visiting each other’s city for the project’s İTEF 2012 leg.

The 400th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Turkey and The Netherlands also has its own reflection on the İTEF calendar with a program called Café Amsterdam, for which İTEF venues are transformed into Amsterdam cafés. Eight Dutch authors, including Herman Koch, Kader Abdollah, Laia Fabregas and Gerbrand Bakker, will be taking part in book recitals and panel discussions with their Turkish colleagues during the program.

The festival will also publish a book titled “Şehir ve Korku” (City and Fear), featuring the participating authors’ contributions recounting their biggest fears and times when they feel the most fearless. The book will be published in both Turkish and English and will be distributed at the İstanbul TÜYAP, Frankfurt and London book fairs.

The festival is held in a variety of venues across the city. For the full program, the list of participating authors and venues hosting the festival, see the festival’s website www.itef.com.tr.