Natalie Shooter · Photographs: Fatma Gültekin
Like many of Ankara’s residents, Mehmet Hakkı and Elçin Sevgi Suçin came to Ankara from towns in rural Turkey. Growing up in opposite ends of the country – Sevgi in Denizli in the west and Mehmet in Tuzluca in far east Anatolia – the couple met in the centre. ‘People from all across Turkey cross each other’s paths in Ankara,’ says Sevgi.
Inside a pale blue mid-20th century Ankara apartment building on a quiet residential side street off the iconic Tunalı Hilmi Caddesi, Arabic-Turkish literature translator and professor Mehmet Hakkı and poet Elçin Sevgi Suçin are sat on a sofa in their living room discussing some of their most recent reads by Turkish writers. ‘Lately, I’ve been reading Burhan Sönmez. I came across him very recently. He writes about this region and has a very universal approach, while staying close to the culture,’ says Mehmet.
‘The literary scene is really rich with new writers at the moment. Last year there were so many novels published in Turkey by young writers,’ adds Sevgi. ‘Lately I’m fascinated by İkinci Yeni, Turkey’s Second New movement of poetry.’
Besides their full-time jobs – Sevgi is a project expert at the Centre for European Union Education and Youth Programmes and Mehmet teaches Arabic literature and translation at Gazi University – the couple are heavily immersed in the literary scene. Sevgi has published two poetry books – ‘Büyüklere Şiirler Büyüleyen Hayatlar’ (‘Poems for the Giants and Enchanting Lives’) and ‘Aşktan ve Savaştan Başka Nedir ki Hatırlanan’ (‘Nothing is Left to Remember Except Love and War’) – and regularly contributes poems, short stories and essays to Turkish literary journals. Mehmet works as an advisor on Arabic literature for festivals such as the International Eskişehir Poetry Festival and the International Istanbul Poetry and Literature Festival. He was also part of the jury for the 2014 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
Mehmet has almost single-handedly brought Arabic literature into the Turkish literary scene, translating scores of Arab literary classics and new writing that were otherwise either unavailable for a Turkish-speaking audience or translated through a secondary language. Since his first translation of Egyptian writer Yahya Haqqi’s ‘Qindil Umm Hashim’ (‘The Saint’s Lamp’) in 1998, Mehmet has been translating his way through the expansive field of Arabic fiction and poetry. His published works include three books by Syrian writer Adonis, four by Mahmoud Darwish including ‘Mural’ and ‘Why Did You Leave The Horse Alone?’, Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’ and Nizar Qabbani’s ‘Book of Love’, which won the Turkish Writers’ Union’s Translation Award in 2006.
What were some of your earliest interactions with Ankara’s literary scene?
Mehmet: While I was studying Arabic language and literature in Ankara University, I started attending all the literature festivals. Poets and writers were coming from all over Turkey to attend these festivals. It made me very connected to Turkish literature. As students we didn’t have money to buy books, so me and a group of friends would spend a lot of time in Dost bookshop. Every few days I would go and read part of a book – I finished reading entire novellas and poetry books over several visits.
Sevgi, how did you start writing poetry?
Sevgi: A few years after we got married, I wrote my first short stories and poems for Mehmet. When we had our daughter Zeynep, I started writing fairytales and won the TÖMER Fairytales Honourable Award for ‘The Dream of Zeynep’ in 1999. After the Internet entered our lives I discovered literary websites and blogs and created an online blog where I was writing about the small details of daily life. That got me into writing poetry again. I wrote a short poem about Victor Hugo and was quite happy with the result, so continued writing poems about writers I admired. After three months, I prepared my first book ‘Büyüklere Şiirler Büyüleyen Hayatlar’, dedicated to great poets. It includes essays about the lives of poets such as Edgar Allan Poe, Nâzım Hikmet, Charles Bukowski, Dante, and my poems to them.
Mehmet: There’s a poem in Sevgi’s book for Adonis that I translated into Arabic. He read the poem and archived it in his special library.
Was Arabic literature underrepresented in Turkey when you started out?
Mehmet: After Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, Turkish publishers became very interested in translations of Arabic literature. There weren’t enough Arabic to Turkish translators, so they translated books from a second language, through an English, French or German translation. For poetry particularly this is a disaster, because even when you’re translating poetry directly from the source language there are many losses. At the time, Turkish publishers would only take a chance on books that had found success in English language editions, but after many translations things are changing.
How do you select your next text to translate? Do you focus on the classics of Middle Eastern and North African literature that haven’t yet reached a Turkish audience in a powerful translation or on introducing new writers?
Mehmet: In my early years I focused on translating modern classics in short story form from well-known writers – Yusuf Idris, Yahya Haqqi, Naguib Mahfouz, Tayeb Salih. Poetry wasn’t translated much, just a few classics like ‘Mu‘allaqāt’. There were many bad translations around though. It became a personal mission for me to correct this negative image of Arab poetry in Turkey. I picked out works by some of the most important figures – Mahmoud Darwish, Adonis, Nizar Qabbani and Mohammed Bennis. Some of our early translations caught the interest of Turkish publishers which helped build an interest in Arab poetry.
For Turkish literary magazines, I translate short stories and poetry by lesser-known writers and focus on new writing. My last translation in Yasakmeyve magazine was the work of 10 young Syrian poets. They have a group called Thulatha’ Al Shi’r and meet every Tuesday in a place in Damascus, like Dead Poets Society.
When you started out, you were perhaps the only Arabic-Turkish translator of Arab literature. Is there a new generation now?
Mehmet: Yes, I’m not alone anymore. For years, I’ve been teaching Arabic translation at university and doing workshops from Arabic to Turkish and vice versa. Over the last four years we’ve been able to establish a pool of translators. We’ve just started a literary magazine called Balkon, which is focused on Turkish and Arabic literature. I distribute new texts between the translators and then edit their work afterwards, so the magazine has an educational role.
Are literary magazines still one of the most important platforms for new literature in Turkey?
Mehmet: Yes, they’re very important for both established names and for young writers. It’s a way for new writers to get to know each other and get their work out there. Publishing a book is never easy for new writers, but publishing texts in a literary magazine is within reach for the new scene of literature.
Sevgi: Last month, I wrote about the work of the young American poet Matthew Zapruder in the literature magazine Karaköy Mono. I discovered his poetry, researched his work and translated some of his poetry to Turkish, so Turkish poetry readers could be introduced to him. In Turkey, we often just know our geography and our movements, but reading about poets from other countries opens up new methods and topics. Literary journals are very important tools for translations and for sharing our opinions on poetry. It helps us to develop.
‘We’re good readers of each other’s work,’ Mehmet says. ‘I translate poems and Sevgi edits them, so together we create very powerful texts.’
Originally published in Brownbook, Issue 67 (The Ankara Issue), 2018, pp. 44–53. Read the original pages ↗