The Writer’s Block: A Video Q&A with Birgül Oğuz and Armen of Armenia

Turkish writer Birgül Oğuz, winner of the European Union Prize for Literature, is the author of Fasulyenin Bildiği, or What the Bean Knows, (2007) and Hah (2012). Armen of Armenia, who incorporates his nationality into his penname’s wordplay, is a political activist and the author of a collection of interactive short stories entitled The Return of Kikos (2013) and the novel Mommyland (2015). His work was selected to appear in the 2015 edition of Best European Fiction. Birgül and Armen visited City of Asylum Pittsburgh as residents of the International Writer’s Program at the University of Iowa.

Sampsonia Way interviewed the two writers about their countries’ troublesome history, the manifestation of political conditions in their writing, and literature as a conduit to dissidence and change.