Ayse Berktay, friend of the Russell Foundation for many years, has now been acknowledged by PEN America and awarded the 2013 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write prize. Here is here acceptance speech, written in prison in Turkey, where she has been held without bail since October 2011 (see Spokesman issues 115, 119, 120) Ayşe Berktay in Bakırköy Women’s Prison. Photo courtesy Ali Berktay STATUS: On Trial Ayşe Berktay is a translator, scholar, author, and cultural and women’s rights activist. Her publications include History and Society: New Perspectives, 2008, and The Ottoman Empire and the World Around with Suraiya Faroqhi; and she is the editor of Women and Men in the 75th Year of the Turkish Republic. Her translations include The Imperial Harm: Gender and Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1520-1656 by Leslie Penn Pierce; and The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922 (New Approaches to European History) by Donald Quataert. Over the past decade, Ayşe conducted work at the History Trust, ...