July’s works are now live and can be found below and throughout the postings on the English homepage!
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.
This exchange, 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. For May, Scottish PEN took over the role of amplifying our young writers voices within their membership and audience, and PEN Catala promote our writers for June to their own members and audience in September (due to holidays in their office for August)
In July our partnership reaches out to Russia, in a humble collaboration with PEN Moscow Centre!
This means our writers will be translated to and promoted in the Russian language throughout the coming month. A renown fellow young poet and writer Lev Oborin diligently translated the works from English and for that we are grateful to him as well as to the PEN Moscow centre and it’s President Nadezda Azhgikina for collaborating with us and promoting our writers in Russia.
We are also heartily grateful to the literary/cultural platform “Discours” based in Russia who have kindly promoted İlkyaz and our young writers works on their website, along with wonderful illustrations by Ksenia Gorshkova! You can check out the pieces and illustrations via this link.
You can have a read of the texts in Turkish/English/Russian via links provided below and check out our translator Lev Oborin’s biography here:
Lev Oborin (b. 1987) is a poet, translator, and literary critic. He has five books of poetry to his name, along with a book of children’s poems and numerous publications in literary magazines, such as Poetry, Poem, Novy Mir, Vozdukh, etc. Oborin’s poetry has been translated into English, French, German, Polish, and Latvian; he has translated poetry and nonfiction from English and Polish. He edits a nonfiction book series in the New Literary Observer publishing house, and works for Polka, a website dedicated to classic Russian literature. He is married and has two sons.
Our new section Literature + will be opened very soon, with a mission to unite different forms of expression and form bridges between creatives, check out the details here and apply while you can!
Don’t forget to check out our writers under the age of 15, in “15-“, our continuing archive of stories from everyday lives in “Human Portraits” and PEN International President Jennifer Clement’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.
İmgesu Ünal: Sedat’ın Simitleri Hayatın Neresinde? / Where do Sedat’s Simits Stand in Life?/ Где в жизни место для симитов Седата?
What about those over there? Sedat’s best customers. Their pure faces, young and bright. How effortlessly beautiful and careless they are! On the plateau of an era being dragged down to the bottom, they are complete enough to shaken the essential foundations of capitalism. They have never lost anything that cannot be owned with money or replaced by consumption. The torch of youth in their eyes. Their minds hardworking, active, complex… They never dream about being happy. They want to be like Sedat. They want to give their heart that is ready to burn with its own wood and flame, a reason to start the fire. They secretly admire his struggling and has-been face… They want to understand Sedat even better than himself and curse every morning on behalf of him. Just so they themselves have stories. So that they themselves matter. To be one of those who are the most correct, distressed in this cruel world. Is this really what we call life? Is this it? Without the deprivation of sky. Without carrying any load. They wouldn’t give 5 kuruş2. Sedat doesn’t mind.
About the author: Born in Ankara, in 1992, she completed her first, middle, high and later higher education in Ankara. She owes her process of maturity and mental development to Ankara. She has written columns and articles relating to current affairs in newspapers and other sources as a student of Political Science and International relations. During her education in English Language and Literature, she shifted her pen towards short stories and essays. Reflecting on the fact that She in the quest for someone to get to know their nature and express it, one must look beyond literature, body language and speech; she has also taken an interest in Usui Reiki and Tai Chi, and continues her life attempting to learn from every source and with the knowledge that true mastery lies is in being a novice.
Binnaz Deniz Yıldız: Çıkmaz Sokak / Blind Alley / Бинназ Дениз Йилдыз
No fate,
Can be compared to another.
A fishy smell in indecisive breaths…
The sea reaches out from it’s cisterns suffusing
The dead end of irrelevance
“Is it a sin to love?” asks a hand reaching from a balcony.
“What of making love?” asks a towering shadow.
The blues emptied out from brownish boxes,
Rolled as dice in coffee shops.
I think I am loosing my mind, my mind is on the run.
Let’s hold it down at the blind alley of irrelevance
About the author: I was born in 17.10.1985 in İstanbul. I graduated from Girne American University Turkish Language and Literature Teaching Department in 2010. I worked in private teaching institutions for three years. In 2016, I was attained to Bursa and am currently working as a Turkish teacher in a public school.
Sadık İkindi Oyun /The Game / Игра
“I noticed that Kaya’s lips slightly opened as the ace was distributed during the final hand. His closed card was definitely an ace. As I locked my feet on the front legs of the chair, I waited for the card Davut was offering, the card that would pay half of my rent. A nine.. for once I hoped to be lucky… the card was a six that seemed like a nine. Even for this, one would appreciate the distributor. Usually after these cards, comes a seven. Seven puts an end to everything with a godly and painful grin on its face. If it could speak the first thing that would come out of its mouth would be, “Hi friend it’s me again, the worst out of all prime numbers. I came to teach you that there is no such thing as luck in this world.”
About the author: Born exactly a year earlier from the day -great Turkish poet- Turgut Uyar died, in a remote part of İstanbul. Grew up in the desert of truth. Now he carries on undertaking work no one respects and writes scenarios of hope for dingy theatres seeking talented actors.
