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 collaborated with PEN South Africa. Now, Scottish PEN is taking over the role of amplifying our young writers voices within their membership and audience. Scottish PEN will also feauture this month’s writers within it’s literary journal PENnings. You can check out the December issue of the journal here. We are grateful to Manager Nik Williams and the rest of the team that enabled this cooperation.
Don’t forget to check out our writers under the age of 15, in “15-“, Cem Güler and Ayhan Erkmen’s stories in “Human Portraits”, famous Turkish poet Orhan Veli Kanık’s poems he penned when he was barely 20 years old in “İlkyaz’ıları” and renown International and Burmese author Ma Thida’s reading suggestions to young writers.
You can also keep up with new shares on our blog, our music playlist and new entries on our main page.
Ahmet Uçar – Rapunzel Öpenler Cemiyeti / Rapunzel Kissers Community
May the worlds crumble upon me
Now that I’ve kissed Rapunzel.
“If the steel, armored wall has surrounded
The horizons of the western front”
Was what Rapunzel said.
Her hair was nothing like my mother-tongue
“This hair can only be Swedish” I thought
And I had only heard of Sweden
From the chocolates my uncle brought.
About the author: Born in November of 1989 in Isparta. Graduated university in 2013 and completed his masters degree in 2015 at Bilkent University Chemistry Department. He is continuing his PhD in Bioengineering at Scotland’s Edinburg University. His writings have so far been published at online and in print sources such as Notos, Kultur Mafyası, De/Da. He keeps an amaterusih interest in photography and cinema.
Vedat Fatih Yaman – Ruhların Adresi / The Address of Spirits
Nazım Bey departed us a month ago. At his funeral, I gave my condolences to his family wearing shiny clothes and shades covering their foreheads, carrying the silence of a season foregone rather than sadness and haplessness. I watched my friend, like tinwearwrapped up in a table cloth, being dropped beneath a tree, into a rectangular hole in the ground.
“There,” I said, “a warden of memories devoid of all desire and belief, yet another hunchback of the past goes to the earth, to be forgotten.”
I shivered right after. It was foolish to associate this man with his body which I haven’t witnessed in years instead of his handwriting, transcribing his dreams, thoughts and troubles to me on snow white pages. But what spoke to me must’ve been Nazım Bey’s inflating spleen, spotted hands and short-sighted eyes, but his spirit longed for tales told in whispers and music.
About the author: I was born in Ankara on 23 June 1995. I am working on literature since I was 16. Apart from the zines, my short stories were published in Vapur Edebiyat and Öykü Gazetesi.
Umay Sıla Güzel – Küçük (Kırmızı) Balık / The Little Red Fish
The ocean of attitude and noise, who starved for insight was unaware of the difference between a shark and a gold fish. Clogging the flow of its lone existence, those eyes witnessed lands built of dreams and illusions and lives of every being; but through all, it could distinguish the sky and that was surely enough. This was the reason why the eyes never recognized how drained The Little Fish who created itself from ash was and the path it took towards infinity. It only kept the stream of its gigantic being and waited for the end of time. On the other hand, the little fish was neither gigantic nor had the patience to waith for timelessness. The Little Fish detached from the ashes of a flaming dream and began swimming.
About the author: Tarık Buğra Social Studies High School, 10th Grade, Akşehir/Konya. Born 2002 in Mersin
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