I will never see the world again

An Excerpt

Writers are magicians, who create magic giving life to ideas and feelings with words. They are deemed dangerous for they resist and see what others cannot. Around the world writers and poets have been put behind the bars for saying the things as they are. They pay the price but as they say ideas and words cannot be imprisoned, they somehow find their way out.

Here’s the concluding excerpt from the book I Will Never See the World Again by Ahmet Altan. He wrote this book in his prison cell when he was given a life sentence. Originally written in Turkish, it has been beautifully translated into English. (More on the book later on.)

I am a writer. I am neither where I am nor where I am not. Wherever you lock me up I will travel the world with the wings of my infinite mind. Besides, I have friends all around the world who help me travel, most of whom I have never met. Each eye that reads what I have written, each voice that repeats my name holds my hand like a little cloud and flies me over the lowlands, the springs, the forests, the seas, the towns and their streets. They host me quietly in their houses, in their halls, in their rooms. I travel the whole world in a prison cell. As you might have guessed, I possess a godly arrogance-one that is not often acknowledged, but that is unique to a writer and has been handed down from one generation to the next for thousands of years. I possess a confidence that grows like a pearl within the hard shells of literature. I possess an immunity; I am protected by the steel armour of my books. I am writing this in a prison cell. But I am not in prison. I am a writer. I am neither where I am nor where I am not. You can imprison me but you cannot keep me here. Because, like all writers, I have magic. I can pass through your walls with ease.

Ahmet Altan I will never see the world again