In 2005-2006, two novelists were charged with the crime of insulting Turkishness by making references to the Armenian Genocide, a campaign of deportation and mass killing perpetrated against Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The novelists faced the possibility of imprisonment because of the accusation. One of the writers, Elif Shafak, was eventually acquitted, as her charges were based on the words of a fictional character in her novel The Bastard of Istanbul. Orhan Pamuk, the other author, had been charged based on comments from an interview. He was ordered to pay about $4,000 to settle his case in 2011. The Red-Haired Woman is the latest novel by the Nobel Prize winner.
- Elif Shafak. The bastard of Istanbul. London: Penguin, 2007.
