Sami Kent

Journalist & Radio Producer in London + Istanbul
In print, my first book, The Endless Country, out 27th June
In audio, now on Today in Focus for @guardian

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

To condense a dream into a tweet: my book, The Endless Country, is out in June 2024. A personal history of Turkey’s first 100 years - you can pre-order it now. Yikes.

https://t.co/W6ZXjAGvw7

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

Yikes! Thanks judges - see you all in November!

[Historia – the HWA @HistoriaHWA]

@Shotsblog @DMan1504 @thebooktrailer @RobertsonImogen @AspectsHistory @waltscottprize @thebookseller @northodoxpress @adberginwriter @RachLouDriscoll @harvillbooks @BlackSpringUK @cathrynkemp @carmellalowkis @MushensEnt @DoubledayUK @rosamundmtaylor @LucyLethbridge @DrFrancisYoung @TheHistoryPress @KateHordern The Endless Country: Sami Kent
This history of the first hundred years of the Republic of Turkey is told from the perspective of the author’s family. A vivid, colourful and often moving account of a tumultuous period in Turkey’s history
#HWACrowns25 10/27

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

What an unexpected midweek treat to see The Endless Country nominated by @HistoriaHWA. Thank you so much to the judges!

[Historia – the HWA @HistoriaHWA]

@rjblackmore1 @JulietPickering @dialoguepub @RachLouDriscoll @harvillbooks @AEGoldin @PushkinPress @BlackSpringUK @cathrynkemp @carmellalowkis @MushensEnt @DoubledayUK @JoannaMAuthor @FigTreePenguin @ktgreenst @picadorbooks @LucyLethbridge @DrFrancisYoung @rosamundmtaylor @TheHistoryPress @KateHordern @4thEstateBooks @LucyHH The Endless Country:Sami Kent
This history of the first hundred years of the Republic of Turkey is told from the perspective of the author’s family. A vivid, colourful and often moving account of a tumultuous period in Turkey’s history
#HWACrowns25 17/

[Archie Bland @archiebland]

The great Today In Focus team of @helenpidd @samikent and Alex Atack made an episode about Max and did him proud. You can listen to it here:

https://t.co/MQEuqcym3D

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

You wouldn’t know - if you didn’t pay attention to how authoritarian countries actually work - the shades and textures of them, how they can move into darker places, become evermore brazen. Basically, how they can break the heart again and again and again.

[Michael Sercan Daventry @MichaelDaventry]

The mayor of Istanbul and President Erdogan’s most prominent rival has been taken into custody.

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

There’s many other things in this piece I disagree with, but that I understand is how literary criticism goes. But to misquote a text - and then seemingly refuse to correct it - well that is a little harder to accept.

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

It’s really disappointing to be misquoted in this recent @TheTLS review - and then ignored by the critic @alevadil after I pointed it out privately.

https://t.co/uLMmEoK12C

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

Besides, of course, the wider point: a misquote like this is just sloppy and poor practice - at best - and we’d all hope for better in our book reviews, not least in the TLS

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

@alevadil @TheTLS Hi Alev, thanks for the review, please do send me a DM. I’d love to have a word.

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

Tough luck Leo!

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

Cumhuriyet Bayramı kutlu olsun - today Turkey turns 101, to millions of flags, balloons and the old playbook of patriotic songs. To learn a little more about its first 100 years, you can order The Endless Country, my personal history of Turkey, and memories of celebrations past

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

Found this moving to watch, these last moments of Açık Radyo on air, a station I've listened to so much over the years, even played to my boy so he hears more Turkish at home. Good radio is rare, even more so in Turkey - what a shame to shut it down. But I'm sure it's not the end

[Apaçık Radyo @acikradyo]

"Açık Radyo kâinatın tüm seslerine, renklerine ve titreşimlerine açık kalacaktır."

[Mythili Rao @MythiliRao]

This week the UK agreed to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. So it’s a good time listen back to this journey of a 2022 Today in Focus ep made w/ @safimichael @SamiKent @philippesands @phil_maynard about the history of this long-running legal battle: https://t.co/XaeNXIGZlr

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

Writing a book, watching it go out into the world, it can be pretty lonely. So what a joy to receive a postcard - an actual printed thing - from a stranger who enjoyed it. Thank you T!

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

It was a pleasure to work on this with @estheraddley, @helenpidd and @elidblock. And to meet Khalil in the end too

What a story to be able to tell - about migration, its sometimes tragic ends as well as its happier beginnings, and ultimately about the power of stories themselves

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

‘Curious, emotional and partly unsettling’, but most importantly ‘recommended’. Thanks Merih!

[merih @champersnova]

Just finished reading Endless Country by @SamiKent. It’s been a curious, emotional and partly unsettling trip down memory lane, an episodic depiction of the history of “modern” Turkey that is. Refreshes one’s memory! Recommended.

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

And one for me:

https://t.co/flp5VWMmbg

I talk to Anna-Joy Rickard about The Endless Country, my book on the history of Turkey, for the latest episode of the Great British Foreign Affairs Podcast

[Sami Kent @SamiKent]

One podcast for you:

https://t.co/94rkaopo2W

@tomphillipsin speaks to @helenpidd about Venezuela and the president who refuses to concede defeat.

With @RuthAbrahams5 and @RudiZygadlo. And, if we can say so ourselves, we think it's pretty good