the past and the present of book publishing in kurdish language in ...

Kurdish publishing houses Avesta and Nûbihar have their own bookshops aswell. The bookshop of the former is in Diyarbekir and of the latter – in Istanbul.Medya bookshop in Istanbul mostly offers books in Kurdish and books onKurdish topics. There are such bookshops in Diyarbekir, too. They aresituated in the central areas of towns.Medya bookshop was founded in 1997. Its owner says he was visited bythe police at least three times a month during the first years. Policementhrew the books on the shelves onto the floor, treaded on them and threwtheir fags on them. They insulted the owner and sometimes hit him on thehead with a book to force him to give up selling such books. At times he washandcuffed and had to spend a few nights in the police station. Sometimeseven his customers were arrested with him. The owners of the shops nearbystopped greeting him, thinking that he must be a very dangerous man. Afterthe law was changed in 2003 the police stopped disturbing him.The owner of the Avesta bookshop founded in Diyarbekir in 1999 says heused to experience pressure too but the police do not disturb him anymore.He says he sells books on credit and deferred payment.3.4.2 Book distributionBooks in Kurdish are sold in the bookshops of some provincial anddistrict centers. Publishers provide them with the books directly or viadistributors. Usually there are problems between publishers and bookshopsbecause the bookshops either delay payment or do not pay at all. When thebooks are distributed via distribution firms, publishing houses deal with thedistributors and not the bookshops. Most of the big Kurdish publishinghouses use distributors but the latter take just a few Kurdish books sayingthey hardly sell. These firms keep 40-50 % of the sales themselves. Kurdishpublishers have no distributing firms yet.Books are also sold by commercial travellers. These travelling salesmen goto mountain villages which are of difficult access for distributing firms andbookshops and sometimes sell the books on deferred payment to theteachers there. In this way, they find new readers. Commercial travellerstake 50 % of the sales. Avesta publishers sell books to several suchcommercial travellers in Batman, Diyarbekir and Ankara (64).I have talked to such a person selling Kurdish books in Istanbul. He buysbooks from publishers, getting a 50 % discount. He combines the books inthematic sets – dedicated to Kurdish literature, history and other topics, andprepares colorful catalogues with the covers of these books. Young peopleand students take these catalogues around in predominantly Kurdish30