Home ›› 30 Dec 2021 ›› World Biz
Turkish doctoral student Gulfer Ulas saw the first edition of her favourite Thomas Mann collection published for 33 liras.
She found the second print of the same two-volume set selling months later at her Istanbul book shop for 70 liras (about $6 at the latest exchange rate).
The jump exemplifies the debilitating unpredictability of Turkey’s raging economic crisis on almost all facets of daily life -- from shopping to education and culture.
Publishers fear it could also kill off an industry that offers a rare voice of diversity in a country where most media obey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s socially conservative government.
“I am a PhD student in international relations so I have to read a lot. I spend almost 1,000 liras a month on books on my reading list even though I also download from the internet,” Ulas said.
“Book prices are skyrocketing.”
Essentials over books
The Turkish book industry -- almost entirely dependent on paper imports -- pinpoints one of the flaws in the economic experiment Erdogan has unleashed on his nation of 84 million people in the past few months.
Erdogan has ripped up the economic rule book by orchestrating sharp interest rate cuts in a bid to bring down chronically rising consumer prices.
Economists struggle to remember the last time a big country has done something similar because cheap lending is widely presumed to cause inflation -- not cure it.
Turks’ fears about further erosion of their purchasing power prompted a surge in gold and dollar purchases that erased nearly half the lira’s value in a matter of weeks.
The accelerating losses forced Erdogan last week to announce new currency support measures -- backed by reportedly heavy exchange rate interventions -- that have managed to erase a good chunk of the slide.
Few economists see this as a long-term solution. The lira now routinely gains or loses five per cent of its value a day.
Kirmizi Kedi publishing house owner Haluk Hepkon says he fears all this uncertainty “will compel people to prioritise buying essentials and put aside buying books”.
“You publish a book, and let’s say it becomes a hit and it costs 30 liras. And you go to a second edition in a week and the price climbs to 35 liras,” Hepkon told AFP.
