ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) — An Istanbul-based Turkish publishing house has decided to pull a translation of the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho's ‘Eleven Minutes’ off the shelves after some readers realized that the translated version omitted the word ‘Kurdistan’ and changed it to ‘Middle East.’
The publisher's owner, Can Oz, said on Twitter that readers who were outraged by the censorship were right. “We will correct in the next edition,” he said, adding he would recall the last edition from Monday on.
“I don't know who is responsible for the differences between the original and translated versions. Our edition is very old. However, there is no right for the publisher to change the text as they wish,” he wrote in self-criticism.
The novel’s censored Turkish version by Can has been printed 38 times since 2004.
The book’s translator Saadet Ozen defended herself, saying she had no idea and could not prove otherwise as to how the word ‘Kurdistan’ got lost in translation in 2004 when the book was first published in Turkish.
Ozen gave examples from her other translations which included the word ‘Kurdistan.’
“I have been trying to remember if I thought differently back then, but no. I am still the same person. Principles are what save us at times of indecision. Translation always walks hand in hand with interpretation, but censorship is out of the question. I have never sided with censorship,” she wrote on her personal social media page.
She went on to argue that there was no way she would change Kurdistan to ‘Middle East’ although she could not find her draft from 16 years ago but insisted she did not censor Kurdistan.