Ezgi Basaran is a Turkish journalist who made her name covering the Kurdish conflict - reporting 'on the ground' in the fight between ISIS, the YPG, the PKK and the Turkish state. After accepting the offer to write a daily column on Turkish foreign affairs, she became the youngest ever editor of Turkey's Radikal, the biggest centre-left news outlet in Turkey, and the first woman to hold the role. After facing government censorship when covering the breakdown of the Kurdish talks, she resigned. Radikal was shut down by the government a month later - an unprecedented event which made headlines worldwide. She is currently an academic visitor at St Antony's College Oxford. She has nearly 1 million twitter followers, and extensive 'name-recognition' in the field of Turkish politics and journalism. This would be her first book in English.
`Basaran writes that the new Turkey under Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) is rushing headlong towards an authoritarian regime and a new, darker Middle East after the hope of the Arab Uprisings . The solution to what is happening in the Middle East is directly related to Turkey's 40-year-old Kurdish problem and how the Turkish government chooses to deal with it . Basaran's survey of Kurdish history is both familiar and instructive... It is a fascinating, frightening story, journalism bringing all the connections together... Now the Turkish-Kurdish war goes on, Gulen is ready for his extradition and ISIS appears to be free to stage its suicide attacks in Turkey... Watch this space. And read this book.' Robert Fisk, Independent