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Foreign journalists writing about Turkey like to focus on the most fundamental divide in Turkish society: the rift between religious conservatives and secularists.

It is well known that Turkey has more imprisoned journalists than any other country, but as a result of the chilling effect of these prosecutions on the press, many stories never make the news.

There's been quite a clear upswing in nationalist sentiments. Everyone is talking about it, in Turkey as well.

Non-fiction about personal subjects is going to attract more user comments than a foreign correspondent writing from Syria - unfortunately.

The reason is that for many years I have avoided reading anything whatsoever that approaches my own line of country, out of a somewhat fanatical desire to avoid the risk of unconscious imitation.

'Snow' is my most popular book in the United States. But in Turkey, it was not as popular as 'My Name is Red,' or even 'The Museum of Innocence,' because the secular leaders didn't want this bourgeois Orhan trying to understand these head-scarf girls.

I don't much care whether rural Anatolians or Istanbul secularists take power. I'm not close to any of them. What I care about is respect for the individual.

If one has problems with immigrant communities in Europe, that should not be used against Turkey.

One could reasonably argue that the Turkish pogrom against the Armenians during World War I qualifies as a crime against humanity, as does the United States' ethnic cleansing of Native Americans.