Mehmet Yaşın

The portrait of a poet as a father

The works of the well-known Turkish Cypriot poet and writer Mehmet Yaşın will be reprinted by Everest Publications. Mehmet Yaşın, who spends his time in England, Turkey and Cyprus, answered our questions about literature, identity and Cyprus.

Despite the fact that you were born and raised in Cyprus, it is known that England and Turkey were more crucial determinants in your development as a poet and a writer. You say that Cyprus was not directly influential in your development as an artist. What is the exact relationship between the novelist and poet Mehmet Yaşın and Cyprus?
Cyprus is more of an inspiration for me... It is not a place where I can professionally reproduce myself as a writer. My publishers have always been located in Istanbul. Therefore you cannot escape from the literary circle there which directly effects and transforms your lifestyle and perspective. You find yourself observing the island not only as an insider but also as an outsider, a foreigner. This intensifies the multilocality that is always already part and parcel of being a Turkish Cypriot. You begin to evaluate your birthplace in the light of the literary concerns in many different countries. Because it is a small place, Cyprus does not offer the professionally equipped, adequate level of literary and artistic institutionalization. Turkey and England offer more for authorship as an institutional vocation. Yet Cyprus is important in being a source, a reference point. Poetry and literature are deeply related to childhood. One's vital concerns, resources of language and culture, and inspiration come from one's birthplace. Cyprus and childhood are therefore significant inspirational materials for me. There are no professional, contract-based publishers, distributors, literature magazines and centres, research and critique institutions, literary agents in Cyprus.

Can you elaborate on observing Cyprus both as an insider and as an outsider?
I believe this holds for every professional writers and artists born in Cyprus. It is of course saddening to see the closed and isolated lives of the Turkish Cypriots in the last fifty years. This effects literature and art very negatively. Life in Cyprus is completely centered around the subject of Cyprus problem which is a very limited perspective that cannot nurture literature and art. A poem or a novel calls forth a type of reading with philosophical and aesthetic concerns that question the universal, deep and complex dimensions of human existence. This matter of "reading" is very important. Literature, with the engagement of its readers, realizes itself and attains a reproductive capacity. I analyzed the theoretical consequences of the under-institutionalized, peripheral, and minor nature of the Turkish Cypriot literature in my book “The Anthology of the Turkish Cypriot Poetry”. In “Collected Essays”, there are analyses on the meaning of the insider-perspective about the Turkish Cypriot literature which sees it as a unique literary development and the outsider-perspective which perceives it as a sub-category of the wider Turkish literature.

FATHERHOOD COMES FIRST
Since you mentioned a couple of your books, let’s talk about the portrait of Mehmet Yaşın as a writer?
I have a small daughter. If you ask me who I am, I will probably define myself not with respect to the books I wrote, but with respect to my role as a father. But of course people get to know me as a writer. This is an identity independent from the one you have in your private life. Most of the time, this identity has a life of its own, independent of the intentions of the writer. The identity as a writer is mostly shaped by the image formed by the public opinion, a process that the writer can never control. How much of this identity is formed by the works of the writer, on the one hand, and how much by the subjective and superficial readings of these works, on the other; this is uncertain. As I said, the issue of reading and readership is of utmost importance. Many of those who know your name know it from the newspapers or from mutual friends. However, if someone wants to talk about the identity of a writer, this must be derived from the works of the writer. His or her literary style, artistic approach, and worldview can easily tell who a writer is. Though a writer changes in time. With every new book, you redefine yourself.

You say that poetry is very much related to childhood. Let's return to past, then... How was your family life, how was your childhood?
My mother was a teacher who was very interested in literature. She was a close friend of Ulus Baker's mother Pembe Marmara who was a talented poet. For instance, there is a poem in Marmara’s book dedicated to my mother. She was also the cousin of Taner Baybars, a poet and writer who produced works not only in Turkish but also in English and French. My grandmother was related to the family of Müftü Raci Efendi, the famous divan poet. My father Özker Yaşın was also a poet. He wrote novels, plays, and essays. He was a newspaper owner and a publisher. I met my father’s poet, writer and published friends from Istanbul. We were not a very traditional family and we were not very close to each other. I grew up alone. I was not raised in a crowded house or in an extended family, except for the holiday times. I never showed what I wrote to my parents. I was not encouraged to do so. As I look at it retrospectively, it looks like my being a writer was something inevitable and quite natural.

How did you become a professional poet and writer in this process that developed spontaneously?
Before learning how to write and read, I made up stories and sentences that sounded like a poem. Then as I began to read poetry, I was inspired by other poets. My first poem was published in a school magazine at the age of 11. I don’t know how it developed, the poem is created spontaneously. My family probably had an influence on me... When I first shyly handed in a file of my poems to a publisher in Istanbul, I was a 25 year old postgraduate student. Some of my poems were published in several magazines in Turkey. Without thinking of the consequences of publishing a book and how this will change my life and without being prepared for the consequences, I tried to get my first book published so that I could dedicate it to my mother who were to die of cancer soon before the first print. This first book won two poetry awards in Turkey in 1985 and was reprinted in Istanbul. It was well received both in Cyprus and in Turkey. Therefore I half-consciously found myself in the world of literature. I saw my name in newspapers and magazines and it felt like “Mehmet Yaşın” was someone else, different from the person I myself had come to know. Perhaps this process of self-alienation which every poet and writer must go through happened to me earlier and harsher than it was supposed to be...

THE FIRST BOOK THAT CAME AFTER 25 YEARS
Everest Publications is now reprinting all of your works. Have these reprinted editions caused you to face the creative process of your past, have they stimulated a self-reflection? Is there anything in the past that you wish you had or had not done?
It is really interesting to reflect on the 25 years of poetry and how, why, and in what direction it developed. Of course you view your old poems from a distance and see things that you wouldn't write or you would definitely add if they were written in the present. You also think whether it was better to wait longer before the publication because you face much wider creative potentialities in your works. Nevertheless you hope that the reader will make the connections and unveil those potentialities himself/herself. In this sense, it is fruitful to read my poems in a collected edition. Therefore, the newly printed "Collected Poems" is like a finalized first book. It covers a period of 25 years and almost 200 poems. For the first time it feels like a whole...

You said that life in Cyprus is completely centered around the subject of the Cyprus problem. The TRNC is internationally non-recognized and isolated. How do you think isolation affects the Turkish Cypriots individually?
It affects them very deeply, in every sense. There are very few communities, especially in Europe, who have lived such an isolated life. Usually the political, economic, commercial, and administrative deadlocks caused by isolation are emphasized. I believe there is a psychological deadlock which is much more determining. Feeling disconnected from the world, being punished and unwanted, being surrounded by hostilities and developing very unhealthy psychological defence mechanisms in reaction to these hostilities. Individuals perceive themselves through a mirror of unrecognition, unacceptance, and exclusion and this perception makes them either very fragile or very aggressive, or fragility and aggressivity feed each other.

Isolation undoubtedly affects the Turkish Cypriot literature. What can you say about the Turkish Cypriot literature?
The Turkish Cypriot literature is under the pressure of a definition of "Cypriot Literature" in Greek monopolized by the Greek Cypriots. Only the Greek Cypriot writers can use the cultural advantages of the European Union membership. Turkish, which is one of the official languages of the 1960 Republic of Cyprus, was not accepted as an official language in the European Union. The Turkish Cypriots unfortunately have not applied to the EU courts to seek their very understandable right in this matter. Any writers association in North Cyprus could have made that application. However, the isolation of North Cyprus leads to the formation of a shallow, isolated mindset in the world of Turkish Cypriot writers... In order for the cooperative bicommunal activities between the Turkish and Greek Cypriot poets and writers to have positive results, the Greek Cypriots need to accept the Turkish Cypriots as equally rightful owners of the island. This cannot be solved with naive brotherhood/sisterhood slogans. If you think that the 3,000 year old Cypriot literature only consists of Greek elements and leave the Turkish and many other elements out of this common history, then the problem is bound to remain unsolved. Therefore the most important issue is the Turkish language... I know from my own experience that whatever I write, the fact that it is written in Turkish and I am related to Cyprus causes disturbance. They think that I subvert the image of Cyprus as a Greek island and the equivalence of Cypriot literature to Greek Cypriot literature.

TURKISH LITERATURE
The honorary guest of this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair (one of the most important literary activities in the world) is Turkey. Will you participate in this fair?
All of my Turkish books published by Everest will be there. There will also be some French, Italian, English, and Letonian translations. I am not sure whether the German translation will be completed by then.

Are you happy to be represented in Frankfurt under the category of Turkish literature? Is the literatary works of Mehmet Yaşın a part of the Turkish Cypriot literature or a part of the Turkish literature?
These categories are not mutually exclusive. A writer who was born in Cyprus can simultaneously be part of the Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot, Turkish, European and at times English literature. Moreover I consider Turkish literature to be a "Turkish language" literature. My Turkish Cypriot literary works can therefore be considered as contributions to a wider conception of Turkish literature. There are many strands of literary currents that are rooted in the wider Ottoman-Turkish tradition without belonging to modern Turkey.

Are there new books on the way?
In 2007, Everest Publications published five books of mine. This year they will publish some more. Currently most of my time is spent on following the translations of my novels and poems. They will be published, also as poem DVDs, in English, Italian, French, German, Letonian and Russian.



Mehmet Yaşın’s works
Born in 1958, Lefkoşa, Mehmet Yaşın lives in Cambridge. Several of his novels have been published in English, Italian, Greek, Hebrew magazines and anthologies. "Soydaşınız Balık Burcu" and "Sınırdışı Saatler" are being currently translated into English and Italian.

Novels: Soydaşınız Balık Burcu (1994), (1995 Cevdet Kudret Novel Award), Sınırdışı Saatler (2003)

Poetry books: Sevgilim Ölü Asker (1984), (1985 Akademi Poem Award/A. Kadir Award);
Işık-Merdiven (1986); Pathos (1990); Sözverici Koltuğu (1993); Hayal Tamiri (1998); Don’t Go Back to Kyrenia (2001); Adı Kayıplar Listesinde (2002); Collected Poems / 1977-2002 (2007)...

Essays and reviews: The Anthology of the Turkish Cypriot Poetry (1994); The Anthology of Ancient Cypriot Poetry (1999); Poeturka (1995); Step-Mothertongue - From Nationalism to Multiculturalism: Literatures of Cyprus, Greece and Turkey (2000); Kozmopoetika (2002); Diller ve Kültürler Arası Bir Edebiyat İncelemesi: Kıbrıs Şiiri Antolojisi: MÖ 9. yy. - MS 20. yy. (2005), (2005 Memet Fuat Award); Collected Essays / 1978-2005 (2007)...