Your new book, ‘There are rivers in the sky’, is a mix of history and geography. What motivates you to walk on that path again and again?
As a writer, I am interested not only in stories but also in silences – in people who have been silenced in history. Most of the stories we are told, especially in Turkey, are from the perspective of a man in a position of power. But the stories of women, minorities, men deprived of power, for example, have been forgotten. I have always been interested in untold stories, silences, taboos, gaps. Literature has the power to re-humanise people who have been dehumanised, to make the unheard worth hearing. However, writing this book was very difficult for me because whole worlds are built around a tiny drop of water.
Why water?
Even at this age (52), I don’t really know where the stories come from. I just know that I’m interested in nature. We’ve made ourselves consumers and the more you consume, the more value you have. I think we need to question that. We need to understand that we are only a small part of a very fragile ecosystem in which trees have a voice, water has a presence. I’m also interested in ecofeminism. When we talk about the climate crisis, we’re really talking about the freshwater crisis, and that particularly affects women around the world, because they carry water to their communities and often have to walk long distances, which increases the likelihood of gender-based violence. So, everything is connected. This is my love poem to water.
Tell us how your childhood in Türkiye shaped you as a writer.
I was born in France, but my parents separated shortly after and my mother brought me to Ankara, Turkey. So, two things are very important to me: first, the feeling of displacement and the idea of homeland. The second is the solidarity and sisterhood between my mother and my grandmother. Even though they are very different, they supported each other immensely. My grandmother was barely educated, but she believed wholeheartedly in women’s independence. So, when my mother returned as a young divorcee with no career, no money, no diploma, it was my grandmother who encouraged her to go back to university so she could have options, and she took care of me. At a very delicate moment of our lives, my grandmother’s support changed our destinies. I am a great believer in women supporting women.
Do you consider yourself spiritual, religious, or secular? Can someone be all three things at the same time?
I am not religious at all, especially when it comes to organised religion. I think spirituality is a personal pursuit and everyone’s journey is different, like fingerprints. Secularism is important – where religion does not try to dominate and shape public life, especially for women.
You said somewhere that you don’t like certainties – that you can learn equally from faith and doubt, from being simultaneously gentle and radical. Can you please elaborate on this non-binary approach?
I think this is one of the most important questions of our time, because of how deeply and bitterly polarized we have become. For storytellers, there is no such thing as us versus them. There are only humans. There is no ‘other’. So, we have to question these dichotomies that are constantly being imposed on us. We have to find a new narrative that is aware of what we share as human beings. For me, words like diversity and multiculturalism are priceless – not just external diversity, but also the multiplicity within my own soul. I honestly believe that in life, we learn much more from differences than similarities. I don’t want to be surrounded by people who think like me, dress like me, talk like me, because that’s a very self-centered existence. If what you’re saying makes sense, I’m willing to modify my opinions, so that the door can be a little open. What we’ve lost in the age of the internet is real intellectual exchange. Coming back to the question of certainties, the absolute certainty of dogma really scares me. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to say, ‘I don’t know.’ I like the humility of people who say, I’m on a journey, I’m learning, I’m a student of life.
What is your advice to a young writer?
While lecturing in schools I found that six- and seven-year-olds have a lot of courage and guts. When you ask if there is an artist or a poet in the room, many hands go up. At that age, girls are very confident, sometimes even more than boys. But in middle and upper school, it is amazing how much things change. Girls don’t want to speak up. Nobody wants to be an artist or a writer. We have basically told these children – don’t be different, blend in. So, slowly, we kill their confidence and creativity. All I can say to the young writer is: don’t let this happen to you. Go back to that inner garden you had in your childhood and recreate it.
