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Media-Mania.de: I read your book "The Power of Water" and I always asked myself: Is the family real or is it pure fiction?

Alan Drew: Yes, it?s absolute fiction, although it is based on many experiences I had or witnessed when I was in Istanbul. My wife and I were there for three years from 1999 to 2002. The earthquake obliviously was a huge role in the story, but also so many things happened while we were there. People I cared about but didn?t know very well, when I left I really wanted to search and try to understand them. The last year there were a number of honour killings in Istanbul, they were very shocking. A lot of these experiences played into the story but the story is fiction and these characters are characters I have made up, based on people I knew.

Media-Mania.de: What made you write about the earthquake in Istanbul?

Alan Drew: There are many reasons why I wrote about the earthquake in Istanbul. The first one was just the shock of seeing the destruction that happened. I grew up in Los Angeles and have been through many earthquakes, my wife and I met in San Francisco and experienced a number of earthquakes and when we arrived to Istanbul this 7.4 earthquake just ? I have never seen that kind of devastation. So we went down to work at a tent city that was run by a southern Baptist-group from Texas, they were Christians and this tent city is very well run, the Turkish government was very overwhelmed, so they had to have many help agencies coming in to work
And these people were running this amazing tent city but then they were wearing these blue T-shirts that had this dove and on the chest and a cross on the back and they were doing the work. The origin of the book is this situation where we just got done feeding everybody and a group of us - teachers from the school we were teaching in - we were just taking a break before going back out to talk to people and play soccer with the kids and this young man came up to us, early twenties probably. And he got down on his knees, down on his haunches and said "You?re all Christians, right?? and we all looked at each other like "What?s going on?? and a very good friend, Robert Rosenberg, who is Jewish, just looked at me with a strange look like "This isn?t good?. And he didn?t wait for an answer, he just said "Go out there and spread the Good News.? And he ran of to the tents, obviously trying to convert the Moslems in the camp to Christianity, which I was so angry about. It seemed like such an abuse of their position. The people in the camp lost everything, if they were to keep their family healthy, they had to take the food and the shelter from the American missionaries. But then they were forced to listen to them, being told that their religion wasn?t good enough. That was such an abuse of the power that those American Christians had - and it?s a lost opportunity too: If the Americans had just come in and taken care of everybody in the camp, never mentioned God, never mentioned Jesus, never mentioned Christianity, then I think that the Turks would have had such a positive impression of Americans and of Christians, because they just did good, just tried to help somebody without wanting to convert them. And instead they ruined it, I think. And it struck me, I was so angry about it that it stuck with me and I wanted to write about that and then it also seemed for such a metaphor for much of American policy in the world. You know, when America goes out and does a lot of things but then they also say "You have to be like this, you have to be like us? and so I kind of wanted to use that as a metaphor for the book.
But there were many things that happened ?

Media-Mania.de: I remember the character "Marcus? in your book. How many parallels are there between "Markus? and you?

Alan Drew: I would say, there are fewer parallels between Marcus and me than between Sinan and me. Marcus was very very difficult for me to write about, even though he is an American, because I disagree very strongly with what becomes a fundamental belief. He must ? The only way you can make it to heaven is to be a Christian and then you have to convert these people and help them to reach heaven. I disagree with that. He was a difficult character to write because of that. But he is very much like people I met in Turkey who were British or American, who spent their life in Turkey and did really fabulous work, but then they have this very patriarchal view, a very paternal view of Turks, that, you know, it?s kind of like this "I?m here to help you, I know how it works, because I?m from the West, I?m better and we?ll lift you up and you?ll become like us.? It?s a pretty condescending view. So he was difficult to write.
I would say Sinan is more like me. For me, so much of the story for Sinan is, how can he keep himself as a man, as the kind of person he is used to being? He is the primary bread bringer, he has to take care of the family, shelter the family and everything that allows him to do this is taken away from him and he loses the power of being able to do that. I was becoming a father at that time, my first child and I was scared to death. I was afraid that I was going to ruin my children?s lives, I was going to kill them in some way, a lot of my fear for that comes in through Sinan.

Media-Mania.de: In your book you describe that that the government of Turkey didn?t do so much for the people. What really happened? What did you see?

Alan Drew: I?m not really sure what really happened because it was a very confusing time. From the view of the Turkish government it was an acute and huge disaster, I think every government, even the most well organised governments would have a difficult time helping everybody in that situation. Whole towns were destroyed and devastated. I think the primary reason, why it was so horrible is because of the building-codes. There are all these people coming in from Anatolia into the city Istanbul and the government is incapable or isn?t organised enough to make sure that the buildings being built are strong buildings, that are up to code. So you have these situations where all these contractors were not building the buildings the way they were supposed to, like putting beach-sand in the cement. So all these buildings collapsed. Most of the people in these buildings were living in poverty. So in that respect the government failed, because the policies that pushed Sinan from the South-East, the civil war, that?s a political failure for the Kurds and then coming to Istanbul and then having the government failing again watching over what kind of buildings were built in an earthquake-zone. But then, there were such wide areas of destruction, so when the civil government wasn?t able to set up relieve-stations very quickly. Usually the military would step in, but the military was devastated as well, they also collapsed. So I think many Turks who suffered from the earthquake, and many of them were very poor and conservative, started to feel that the government couldn?t protect them and wasn?t able to do that and I think that was a big shock to many people.
I don?t know for sure but I have the theory that that is part of the reason why you have this mass movement of more conservative people in the country voting parties like the AKP, that are very conservative, because they feel that they care about them where they feel the more secular governments they feel do not.

Media-Mania.de: You didn?t just write about the earthquake, you also described a kind of change in the society in Istanbul, which had nothing to do with the earthquake but with the adaptation of some ideas of the western culture. How much did you experience this change during the time you spent in Istanbul?

Alan Drew: If I experienced the change towards Westernization in Istanbul? I don?t know ? While I was living there it seemed very Western. At the time, the Turks were really hopeful to join the EU, I think in general the Turks were very positive towards Americans and the American government at the time. The Iraq-War has changed a lot of that. I actually think the movement might be the opposite direction. I think that there is this big thing happening in Turkey, it used to be a mainly village society and all of the sudden all the villagers move into the city, this makes it a very cosmopolite society. Istanbulitans are very secular, very western and very European and suddenly being surrounded by people from the villages that are not, that look more towards the Middle-East and are more religious-conservative, that may be more willing to have an islamistic government. And you have this clash going on within the city itself and the government itself. You always saw women wearing beautiful headscarves, the moderate Moslems. But you start to see more and more people wearing black cabanas and completely covering themselves. But while we were there, in 2002 I never saw a women covering her face. Even in the most conservative neighbourhoods. I was there again a month and a half ago and suddenly you see people covering their faces, covering their hands, so I feel like in many ways it?s moving the opposite direction, looking more towards the middle-east. But that?s the heart of the conflict in the country that?s going on right now with the government.

Media-Mania.de: You were there for three years, what are you doing now? I read that you went to Europe and that you travelled a lot.

Alan Drew: While we were living in Istanbul we travelled a lot, that was wonderful. When we left there, we went to Iowa to get our Masters-Degrees. My wife got a Master in Education; I got it in Fiction-writing. When I was there I started working at the book, and about half way through it we moved to Cincinnati and had a child, because my wife is from there. I worked on the book, kept doing research, kept talking to people in Istanbul, kept reading everything I could find about Turkey and then published the book. Now, we just moved to Philadelphia and I?m teaching fiction-writing at Villanova University, and riding around doing these things, you know.

Media-Mania.de: This was your first book, are you going to write more books? Or have you got any projects at the moment?

Alan Drew: I?m supposed to deliver a second book in the States in about a year from now, so I have to write another book or else I?m in big trouble. I worked on another book, it?s been a very busy time, we had a second child and moving and talking about this book all the time, it?s taken me away from the writing, but yes, I?m supposed to have another book soon and it?s taking place in Turkey, once again and I think I want to write a book that shows every side of Istanbul and one perhaps that isn?t so tragic.

Media-Mania.de: Do you have other plans for the future?

Alan Drew: Let?s see: Try to raise my kids, make them to decent people ?
I need to finish this book and maybe earn tenure ? as a professor. We?re taking our children international for the first time, in January we?ll be in Paris which will be great.
My fantasy life would be to teach at a university, continue to write and then to spend the summers in the south of Turkey on the Mediterranean coast. But that?s the fantasy, we?ll see if it ever happens.
I?ll keep writing and hopefully write good books, be a good father, be a good husband and a good teacher, I guess.

Media-Mania.de: Thank you very much for the interview.

Alan Drew: Thank you very much.