Erbil Suleyman has never read the Czech writer Franz Kafka, but he should. Since arriving in Narita Airport on Nov. 13, 1998, as a Kurdish refugee from Turkey, Suleyman's life has resembled one of Kafka's stories, with their hapless characters trapped in absurd situations over which they have little or no control.

"I realize now I came to the wrong country," he says.

Suleyman hails from the southeastern region of Turkey, where most of the country's estimated 10 million Kurds live. Amid growing support for Kurdish nationalism and for the rebel group known as the Kurdistan Workers Party, the Turkish government initiated a campaign of repression, forcibly evicting hundreds of thousands from their homes.