Interview with Murat Uyurkulak
by Aslı Dadak and Hazal Halavut
Translated by Suna Kafadar
Your first novel Tol, came out as a result of 6 years of work. We know that you have been writing poetry before, so how did this transition from poetry to prose happen? Do you still write poetry?
It wasn’t a conscious choice. I feel like I can’t get a hold of poetry which was also voiced by people around me. Though there were some others who liked it. I was too impatient for poetry. It was too harsh, sounded like manifestos. My words were gagging me, and I didn’t have the foundation to extricate my words. I got married to my first wife then. That marriage ended and I went back crestfallen, with a backpack on my back to the house that I had left once slamming its door with big ideas and ideals on my mind. In other words, with a sense of failure and in a defeated state. Literature was over for me for the sake of leaving my past behind. I decided not to write anymore and focused on my guitar. It actually happened with the rule of thumb. I had written a long poem and failed. I had put it aside. And one day I found it. As I was looking at what I had written once, I started to write the verses collaterally. I realized that it was flowing and I started to like it.
Well, the poetic composition in Tol is very dominant…
Totally unconscious. Besides, I never approached literature in a manner like ‘I have to write, I will be a literary person and I will be a writer.’ Therefore that adventure came about with the rule of thumb, freely. Writing is a very personal thing for me, very child-like in the sense that we all had games that we loved to play. We would tie 2 or 3 bed sheets together and make a house out of it. Remember the thrill while playing Tetris. The worlds that a child creates while playing, and how he relates to his self are key ideas and sensibilities in understanding how I relate to my writing.
But on the other hand it requires so much work…
Actually there is some game in there too. As I am building my sentences I am not necessarily thinking of where each word will fall, in what way, and what the reader’s going to think… It’s not like Kafka is sitting on one shoulder and Dostoevsky on the other while I’m writing. I play and scuffle with language freely, it’s like a game for me. I don’t stress myself out and I don’t feel a writer’s responsibility. I don’t feel like I need to keep writing because world literature needs me…
With regards to first novels it is said that writers usually take off from their own lives. In order for following novels to be written the novelist has to struggle and come to terms with his/her life. Is this the case with you?
First novel contains autobiographical elements and that is the case with Tol as well. But it’s not the only component to it. I strongly resisted saying this but I am present in Yusuf (the protagonist). Yusuf’s age, identity, dispositions, perception of life, his volatility in being and not being in life are all qualities that came out of my own life dispositions.
Tol is a book of retaliation, a striking novel for a first. What is the starting point and why Tol? What was the impetus for you in writing this book?
I was born into a poor household; both of my parents were teachers. I was never able get anything I wanted. I wasn’t able to enjoy anything fully. Children of teachers, not all of course, are unfortunate in the sense that they have a hard time belonging to any group. Rich kids want to befriend them but also there is always that element of being looked down upon by these rich kids. My parents have been forcibly relocated to underprivileged areas of the country, continuously, due to their leftist ties, my uncle was in hiding, and a lot of acquaintances have been tortured. We could never stay at one location; therefore I went to five different elementary schools. On top of that I was accepted to a private school. That period was awful too. Middle school and high school passed by with feelings of material inferiority and unfairness. Then I was admitted to the university during which I was beaten by the police a lot due to my leftist inclinations since high school. I was hurt a lot. The USSR collapsed, 80,000 people died in Romania. Both my dad and my uncle didn’t know what to do with themselves so one of them became a Kemalist (a devout follower of Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, and his principles), and the other turned anarchist. They began to pursue younger women. I mean I’m trying to tell this story in a metaphorical manner. So our families were damaged and I was utterly disappointed by the universities in Turkey. I was studying law, one of the worst faculties to be in at the time. Those times were when the war between the armies of Kurds and Turks accelerated. One by one our friends would vanish from the university canteen. Where is Zenan? Where is Huseyin? Gone. They went to live and battle in the mountains. We saw their smashed heads on newspapers.
I got married really young. Poverty again. We couldn’t even live our love fully. We had to work continuously, to waitress. Now who else is going to live with hopes of retaliation other than me? And I am not in the direst of situations at all, I am a grown up with some sort of education. And I always took these things seriously. I could never let anything go and turn my back to social issues and other people’s suffering. I was never the one to focus on money, career and ‘saving’ myself. Such things made me sick to my stomach. Because to be promoted, to make more and more money always meant stepping on someone’s toes, to brownnose, to lie, to be unfair… I could never get over these things. I could never fit in. So I sat down and started to write a book through which I could call people to account for all the terrible things that they have done. I wrote with a flare of rage and enthusiasm. I’d utter a wily laugh every time I wrote a good passage.
To write the stories of characters in your books Tol and Har means to give accounts of alternative narratives, to pay debts and to give a counter-historical narrative. Did you actually mean to give a counter-historical account of these events and to challenge the official accounts that were approved and promoted by the state?
For sure. The stories do stem from a political consciousness. I don’t think politically when I think about writing, or during the process of it. Let me tell you how it works. My grandmother Sukriye Uyurkulak, whose name you won’t hear again, was widowed at the age of 38 and went mad at the age of 39. One day she rushed out of the house completely naked. After that incident she left the house maybe around 30 times until her death, usually to go to the hospital. She passed away two years ago. She will be forgotten in this void. This is such a painful thing. We shouldn’t let that happen. This is not political at all, it is a very humane thing. For instance those friends who kept disappearing or those soldiers who keep dying… The first man whom I trusted to give a story of mine for him to read was a police chief. He was killed. They named this tiny park in Izmir after him. Who cares? But that man had a story. These stories affect me deeply. They say that my stories are a corpus of the downtrodden. I don’t write with such intentions or ambitions. I just don’t want these stories to get lost, I want to protect them from perishing.
Har tells the story of a painful time in the recent history of Turkey. Are the fantastic figures, symbols, and elements in your writing to alleviate the pain and heaviness of the facts? How did this writing process affect you?
It had an immense effect on me. I had to leave the book aside for months sometimes. I cried fiercely as I was writing; I can tell you that openly. Actually the motivation behind the style is really simple. To see vulgar words and to explain things in a matter-of-fact manner really bothered me. Seeing ‘Turk,’ ‘Kurd,’ ‘Armenian’ and using descriptions such as ‘he hit him with the baton,’ or ‘slit his throat’ looked really crude, unbearably naked on the page. So it came out of a very personal need. I just couldn’t handle seeing them on the page like that. In addition it is very strenuous to write about thousands of people who have died. First of all, who are you to write about this issue? Second, how dare you? Third, did you ask the people who have been through that suffering? I grew up in Bornova, Izmir and have had a rather enjoyable life other than the few times I was beaten by the police. The attempt to write about a people’s suffering evokes the feeling of guilt, and therefore one needs to distance himself. He has to aver the fact that he is only the storyteller and these stories belong to them. My writing is only a way to give their stories back to them, to do justice to them.
Do you think it will be possible one day to write about the true stories of the outcasts you refer to as the ‘crooked’ in Har?
I am pretty optimistic with regards to this issue. The reason behind my optimism is that even in a country such as Turkey where a brutal hegemonic society rules out the alternative stories through its one-sided historical accounts and education, and atrocious assimilation strategies, people don’t forget about the past. It means that some things cannot be forgotten and repressed. The fact that we can discuss genocide in Turkey means that we are at a point where I can be optimistic. But the people in power will put up a serious fight. They are very stubborn because they are cowards. Their base is not strong, it’s shaky and that’s why they are cruel. They are going to fight until the end just like other rulers in the world. They could be involved in a massacre too, a new genocide… They would, they can; it wouldn’t be surprising because there are too many others in the country. But when you gather the others the rulers become the minority.
We all have a political stance, our political goals and hopes. And right at this point how are we to manage our relationships with others, to open up to them and talk of one’s reality… It all starts from this principle and one can easily see the longing for this type of sharing and relationship in your writings. Your work reveals such hopes.
This is the type of question that would require us to sit and drink a bottle of rakı. I try do be as honest as possible in everything I say or do. But perhaps this is only one percent of how open a person can be when trying to express his feeling or thoughts. Perhaps this openness does the reverse and it becomes a way to hide myself. In relations of sovereignty and in a world where such relations function in a certain way and where male dominance is so prevalent… Masculinity is ultimately a burden upon men. Men don’t recognize this and that’s another story. Seeds of estrangement are planted in between women and men, homosexuals and heterosexuals, between two women, two men, and between mother and child. There is that myth of fathers and daughters. What a sham! There are so many twisted lines to these stories. In short, without changing the way we live, our economic and political structure we will continue to bear the burden of such relationships. It shouldn’t be about retreating to our castles, hiding behind our shields, we must always try to explain ourselves. And so this book is the attempt of such desires and it’s really difficult.
In Har, you find voice in one of the characters who attempts to write the Book of Truth. In your opinion, what is the relationship between truth and literature?
I don’t perceive truth and reality as one. Reality is a concept that has been taken up, used up in different contexts. It sounds like socialist realism or societal realities, and therefore it’s problematic and upsetting. Literature cannot have anything to do with such matters. People suffer, working class is oppressed and we should talk about it in real terms. Lenin says ‘reality’ is revolutionary. ‘Reality’ is political. Thus, we can use ‘reality’ in politics and not in literature. Literature is concerned with human beings and their nature. When I talk about Truth I’m not concerned with relations of sovereignty and power, the struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor. I grapple with what constitutes the truth of one’s existence. Armenians were massacred and this is a reality. But what is the truth that envelops the hangman after committing the massacre? This is the main question that interests me and that’s what I struggle with in Har.
Do you have any concerns with regards to the translation of your work? Do you fear that your poetic language will get lost in translation? Do you take on an active role in the translation process?
I don’t think about it the least bit. Because if you begin writing concerned about how it will be translated and perceived by a Brit, for instance, you become a craftsman. If they could translate Infante to Turkish my work could very well be translated into other languages. If they get to be translated, why can’t I be? (Laughs) Sure I’m active in the translation process. My German translator has sent me maybe around 200 emails with 4-5 questions in each. This process was like writing a new book for me. I have the utmost respect for translation. But you can’t leave the translator alone, why should you? The author’s participation could only make it better. However, the Bulgarian translator I’m working with has not asked one question yet, which makes me a little uneasy. (Laughs)
You are an adept writer with a strong grasp of his language. What are the influences, inspirations, or the cause of this power in your writing? Can you tell us of the books you have read and of your bedside reading?
I don’t think I read more than the majority. I was always a careful reader but I had my eye on other things. Roguery is in my blood I guess. (Laughs) But I was never a bookworm. My family immigrated and so a very rich Turkish was spoken in my household. My father was a literature teacher and his Turkish was impeccable. Of course I grew up around books and reading a lot. I don’t think it’d be shameful of me to say that I was a smart kid. I wasn’t a genius but I was bright and I could grasp things quickly. I was good both in math and literature but the turning point in my life was when I met poetry. I was 15 or 16. I was limited by my father’s collection and I had read Nazim Hikmet and Ahmet Arif but I had no idea about the movement “Second New.” My world turned upside down after I read Edip Cansever, Cemal Sureyya, Turgut Uyar. I had no idea such language, such poetry existed. I was profoundly shaken.
My bedside book used to be Different Seasons by Stephen King. Don’t laugh, I’m serious. Unfortunately I lost my copy and it’s impossible to find. But seriously, the film Shawshank Redemption is the sequel to this book. I also keep going back to One Hundred Years of Solitude, a couple of pages a year. (Laughs) After Tol was published I was introduced to the work of Louis Ferdinand Celine, specifically Journey into the Night. That one really affected me deeply. I’m also not at rest if I don’t read the first 30 pages of Ince Memed by Yasar Kemal once in a while. As I mentioned before, I keep going back to Ece Ayhan and Cemal Sureyya to understand how one paints with language.
How familiar are you with Kurdish literature?
I’m apprehensive about Turkish translations. I read Mehmed Uzun and really liked it; so later I was involved in publishing one of his books. I also like the work of Helim Yusuf, a Syrian Kurdish author. But I can only read from Turkish so I miss a lot. There are two that I really want to read but I need to learn Kurdish. One is Remezan Alan-Satum and the other Sener Ozmen who lives in Diyarbakir. They also have a political stance which I really appreciate. They actually wait three or four years for their works to be translated to Turkish in order to encourage Kurdish people to read in Kurdish. I try to read whatever they publish but like I said I don’t know much.
What do you think of Turkish literature at large?
Orhan Pamuk, for instance… Orhan Pamuk is a very important literary figure. I am so grateful to him for having written The White Castle and The Black Book. The latter is another bedside reading of mine. He is a very hardworking, proficient writer and that is enough. The fact that he loves to be a bestseller and that he is really interested in media and getting publicity does not change anything with regards to his excellent work. There is one thing that I am heartbroken about though. He once stated that one million Armenians and thirty thousand Kurdish were killed. He was sued multiple times and there was a huge uproar about it. And there came a time where he said that he doesn’t talk about politics anymore. And at that point he had won the Nobel Prize. This is the point where you should actually talk politics. What made you stop talking politics? If you’ve made such a bold statement before, you cannot just back out like that. Look at Yasar Kemal, he did not hesitate speaking his mind at the presidential chair in front of all the officials. You have to talk because you’ve already crossed that line once. I actually wrote an article for Milliyet Sanat about Orhan Pamuk at a time when he was being scrutinized widely. The article was entitled “The Twenty Years of Camaraderie with Orhan Pamuk” and I was writing about my twenty year old relationship with his books. Towards the end of the article, I stated that if it’s a crime I will commit the same crime too and write that one million Armenians and thirty thousand Kurdish were massacred. I don’t remember the exact phrase but it was something like that. However, just after I sent the article to be published, I heard about his statement that he wasn’t going to talk politics anymore. So I called the publisher and asked that part to be taken out. I cannot give political support to somebody who doesn’t want to talk politics. That’s why I’m disappointed and hurt. But none of this has anything to do with his literature and that’s what counts.
You have published two books so far. Is it enough to make a living in Turkey?
This actually depends on preferences and priorities. If you’re not around that much people think of you as this mysterious character. I hate being labeled and I don’t want to make false impressions on people. My books sold somewhere around twenty thousand and I have to live quite modestly. I didn’t make any money at all. I have to do translations to make a living. But this was my choice because I find ‘appearances’ to be rather foolish. In order to make money out of your books you need to be visible and push your publisher to advertize your work. This is too much for me, I cannot pursue such things. If I was of this kind I would have been a CEO at some firm. I cannot just dump my 35 years of existence in order to make a living out of my books. I don’t have anything against people who can do it, I’m not judging anyone. It’s just a matter of preferences and such things don’t suit my nature.
Are you working on a new book right now?
Yes I am, although I’m not sure if it will ever be complete. The title is Merhume. You know women who die are referred to as ‘merhume’. Its subtitle is A Book of Murder. In my first book I was after the leftists in Turkey. In the second one I dealt with minorities and others. And this new one focuses on women through the male gaze. To explain a little further, I try to explore the hell that men create within themselves for themselves, and how this process constructs an exponentially denser hell in women’s world. There is no censure, no holding back, and there are a lot of confessions. I dedicated this book to my grandmother and I hope to render her imperishable.
Tol is a very masculine novel. There are no women…
I feel very distant to the world of women. I constantly try to understand it and battle with my own masculinity. And yet I’m still a member of the villain’s camp. I am not God, nor am I a prophet; I am not anything. I made quite a bold statement in order to express how incognizant of myself I was while writing Tol. How was I to distinguish between the identities of women and men, and reflect on gender relations and tensions, to analyze how masculine or male dominant of a language I was using in such an unaware state of mind? I just started thinking about these issues. I am 36 years old and I look at my past relationships, my masculine position in them and my mistakes. I’ve been through all those brutal male rituals and initiations. Isn’t it a bit unfair to expect from a man who’s been raised on such masculine terms writing that is resolved and pure in itself, and devoid of all those gender tensions?
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