Jacqueline Rose writes:

Killing does not stop people talking, however, even when its aim is to wipe the existence of the one killed from everyone’s minds. In many of the cases reported from across the world, the killer is honoured for his act, celebrated in prison and given special status (honour is then both cause and effect of the crime). But a ‘dishonoured’ woman carries an aura, and the hateful, sordid fascination which she excites can also rub off on her killer when she dies. In Honour Killing: Stories of Men Who Killed, Ayse Onal interviews Nevzat, a man in prison in Turkey for killing his wife and daughter when the wife told him the daughter was pregnant. ‘It was obvious to Nevzat,’ Onal says, ‘that nothing, not even the sacrifice [sic] he had made, could halt the rumours.’ He had killed his wife and daughter to stop the talk behind his back, ‘but now that talk had reached epidemic proportions.’ Like his daughter, Nevzat has become gossip’s prey. You cannot, not even by killing, stamp out words.

(LRB 5 November 2009)

Saqi | paperback 256 pp. |ISBN: 9780863566172