In conversation with Anthony Loyd, Hannah Lucinda Smith analyses Turkey’s ailing democracy – and what Erdoğan’s continuing hold on power means for the rest of us.

More than fifteen years before Donald Trump ascended to the American presidency, Turkey was the crucible for the new, authoritarian populism now shaking the world. Its President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is the face of devotion and division, a leader who mastered divide-and-rule politics for a new century, ushering a nation with the second largest army in NATO towards dictatorship.

Hannah Lucinda Smith has been living in Turkey as The Times correspondent for nearly a decade, reporting on the ground from the onset of the Arab Spring through terrorist attacks, mass protests, civil war, unprecedented refugee influx and the explosive, bloody 2016 coup attempt that threatened to topple – and kill – Erdoğan.

Anthony Loyd is a foreign correspondent for The Times. He has worked for the newspaper for 26 years, reporting from war zones since 1993 when he first travelled to Bosnia. Since then he has written on conflicts in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, West Africa, Chechnya, Pakistan, Somalia, Mexico, Darfur, Algeria, Libya and Syria.

He is the author of two critically acclaimed memoirs, ‘My War Gone By, I Miss It So’, and ‘Another Bloody Love Letter’, and contributes to a wide selection of magazines in the UK and US including National Geographic, the New York Times magazine, GQ, Esquire, and the New Statesman, His writing has won 15 major awards including the Bayeux Calvados international award for war correspondents, and the Amnesty International award for foreign correspondent of the year.

Join Hannah for an in-depth conversation with her award-winning colleague Anthony Loyd as they explore the present and future of this vital country and the origins of its current, illiberal regime.

Event details

Title: Erdoğan Rising: The Battle for the Soul of Turkey | Hannah Lucinda Smith in conversation with Anthony Loyd, Hosted by Anglo Turkish Society.

Date: Tuesday 10 September 2019

Time: 6:45 PM – 8:00 PM BST

Venue: Portland Hall, 4 – 12 Little Titchfield Street, London W1W 7BY

Tickets: £30, £35 + £40 (latter two include copy of the book) + booking fee, available from Eventbrite