As İlkyaz, we work to introduce three young writers every month. We translate these works, which are be made up of a short stories or poems, into English and endeavour to introduce them to readers outside of Turkey.
April’s works are now live and can be found below.
This, we hope, will create new audiences for our writers in the world arena and introduce them to a global network of the world’s literary figures.
In December, we initiated this effort with Norwegian PEN’s lead. After PEN Germany, PEN Belgium/Flanders continued the very same role for the month of February. For March, PEN French Centre took over the role of promoting our young writers abroad. For the writings of April, we are collaborating with PEN South Africa! We are very grateful to PEN SA for promoting our work and acting as a bridge between young wrtiers in Turkey and all sorts of audiences within their sphere of influence. We also convey our special thanks to the entire team at PEN South Africa and President Emeritus of PEN South Africa Margie Orford for their support!
To access the website where İlkyaz is kindly promoted by PEN South Africa and April’s works are displayed click here. (This link will be made available here and on our webpage once we receive it)
Don’t forget to check out our writers under the age of 15, in “15-“, the story of Mesut Öksüz in “Human Portraits”, Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Spirits of the Dead” he penned when he was barely 19 years old in “İlk’yazıları” and renown Turkish author Murathan Mungan’s reading suggestions to young writers with reasons why.
You can also keep up with new shares on our blog, our music playlist and new entries on our main page.
Ceren Mete – Vardı Ya / Once Upon a Shift
Whenever the summer sun sinks I get nostalgic. In fact, why does it matter, summer or winter? Is it pretty having dark weather when waking up? Tomorrow will come to be again. Once upon a shift again. In the hours when people fall asleep, or are dazed, you can’t dive in, you set off on the road. Your eyes darken, you toil to keep them open, first order of the day, as it goes:
“The customers awaits”
The customers await their televisions swiftly, in a day. A home without a T.V is no home at all. In their disease that kills if they spare their glares from it, TV is their breath, the self they can’t keep a hold of. Your expectations don’t matter. You are no customer. You, human…?
About the author: Ceren Mete was born in İstanbul in 1991. Following her university education at the Middle East Technical University in Psychology, she went on to study Social Psychology in Ege University. She then completed her PhD on Guidence and Psychological Consultancy at the same university. Her essays starting from second grade onwards were almost always poetic and didactic works. Some of them have earned small time awards and published in school magazines. She moved on to more emotional scribbling with the effects of a developmental season. She published some of her essays in one of Ankara’s independent local newspapers. She alluded to her texts composed during theatre and creative writing workshops (often performed).
A matter of fact, this story published by İlkyaz can be regarded as her first early spring…
Bekir Dadır – Sizin Tırnaklarınıza Karşı Bizim / Your Fingernails Against Our…
Ripping my fingers off your hands
I would feed them to your dogs against a backdrop of tombstones
I would carve my eyes out at the helm of your casualties
I wished that what you see be as much as the pain I have seen
Cause I could jump through nothingness to your farthest places
Cause I knew the deprival of this copper age
Those that only had bruises to caress
I knew that the sky is not the same at every sight
And that the earth always blooms its flowers with blood
About the author: Born in 1993 in Şanlıurfa, he is continuing his education in Antalya Akdeniz University, Turkish Language and Literature department. His poems, critical and analytical essays and interviews have been published by newspapers and magazines such as: Yasakmeyve, Varlık, Hürriyet Gösteri, Yeni e, Şiirden, Mühür, Hayal, Edebiyatist, Çağdaş Türk Dili, Kıyı, Koza Düşünce, Evrensel, Aydınlık Kitap, Gazete Duvar, Artfulliving
For his compilation, “The Desert’s Gardener” he received the 22nd Ali Rıza Erten Poetry Award.
“The Desert’s Gardener” was published by Hayal publications in September 2018.
I stayed myself with Salih and Salih stayed Salih. As we expanded the scope of our world, the risk of invisible accidents increased, hence the invisibility really repeated itself whenever we made love. It was as if we pulled on our laboratory coats and goggles and observed the household we created, while it widened in factories that were designed excessively symmetric and scribbled drawings of some ridiculous pants, faces, etc. on our small notebooks instead of showing indications as any intelligent person would have with our shared display of pleasure, expressed in a evil, mutual grin.
About the author: I was born in Antalya in 1996. Grew up in Istanbul. Studied in Germany for a while and got back. Currently I’m keeping busy with cinema in my own right.
