In 2013 Turkey’s supreme court overturned the verdict, concluding the novel lacked “any artistic or literary value”.
Exploits of young don juan pdf trial#
The obscenity charges against The Exploits of the Young Don Juan were dismissed in an earlier trial in 2009, but, as a Guardian article by Kaya Genç reports, The publishing house Sel and the translator of the book, Ismail Yerguz, were accused of corrupting public morality, and it wasn’t the first appearance in the dock for Sel and its publisher İrfan Sancı, nor is it the first time for this book (see this MobyLives blogpost and this one). This time, the book in question was The Exploits of the Young Don Juan, which was purportedly written by Guillaume Apollinaire and recounts the erotic adventures of a teenager with numerous ladies, including his aunt.
Where have we heard this before? Judgment on an obscenity trial was postponed yesterday in Turkey, which has seen a series of these trials over the past few years for books like William Burroughs’ The Soft Machine and Chuck Palahniuk’s Snuff. If this man *hadn’t* written a dirty book, then I’d be surprised.