The Tuba Tree

"There is a metaphor I like very much in the Koran: it's a tree called Tuba that's supposed to have roots up in the air. Sometimes when my nationalist critics accuse me of having no roots, I say I feel like the Tuba tree ... My roots are in the air, not in the ground, and when your roots are in the air you can feel connected to more than one country, culture, and identity. I like that flexibility. "

- From an interview with Turkish author Elif Shafak who, like Pamuk, was charged with "public denigration of Turkishness" under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code