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'''Sema Kaygusuz''' (d. [[1972]], [[Samsun]]) Türk yazar.
{{Çok uzun}}
{{düzenle|Ekim 2011}}
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== Özgeçmiş ==
Sema Kaygusuz
[[Öykü (edebiyat)|Öykü]] ve [[roman (edebiyat)|roman]] türünde eserler vermiştir.
1972 Samsun doğumlu yazar, babasının mesleği dolayısıyla Türkiye’nin farklı bölgelerinde yaşadı. Çoğunluk kırsalda ve küçük şehirlerde geçen çocukluk yıllarında, kendi ülkesinin karmaşasını ve kültür zenginliğini yakından tanıma fırsatı buldu. Farklı lehçe ve dillerin içinden bulup çıkardığı masallar, hikayeler, efsaneler, yazarın edebiyat serüveninin ana esin kaynağı olmayı sürdürüyor.
[[1972]] yılında [[Samsun]]'da dünyaya geldi. [[Gazi Üniversitesi]] İletişim Fakültesi Halkla İlişkiler ve Tanıtım Bölümü mezunu (1994) olan Kaygusuz, öğrencilik yıllarında, radyo oyunu, [[koreografi]] ve [[tiyatro]] alanlarla ilgilendi. İlk öyküleri ''[[Kitap-lık]]'', ''Adam Öykü'', ''[[Varlık (dergi)|Varlık]]'', ''Düşler Öyküler'' dergilerinde yayımlandı. Hazırladığı ilk dosya, [[Yaşar Nabi Nayır Gençlik Ödülleri|Yaşar Nabi Nayır Gençlik Ödülü'ne]] (1995), ikinci dosya ise ''1996 Gençlik Kitabevi İkincilik Ödülü''ne değer bulundu. Ancak, ödül alan bu iki dosya, kitap olarak yayımlanmadı.
Sema Kaygusuz, Başkent’te geçirdiği üniversite yıllarında, özel bir radyoda kendi sanat programını sundu. Bu dönem yazdığı ilk öyküler Patika adlı edebiyat dergisinde yayımlanmaya başladı. 1994 yılında Ankara Gazi Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi’nde yüksek öğrenimini tamamladıktan sonra İstanbul’a taşındı.
''[[Ortadan Yarısından]]'' (1997), ''[[Sandık Lekesi]]'' (2000) ve ''[[Doyma Noktası]]'' (2002) adlı öykü kitapları yayımlandı. [[Sandık Lekesi]] adlı kitabıyla 2000 yılında [[Cevdet Kudret Edebiyat Ödülü]]’nü kazandı.
Sema Kaygusuz, hazırladığı ilk öykü dosyasıyla, Türkiye’nin en köklü edebiyat dergisi Varlık’tan 1994 yılında Yaşar Nabi Nayır Gençlik Ödülü’nü aldı. Ardından da Kitaplık, Adam Öykü, Düşler Öyküler adlı dergilerde öykülerini yayınlamaya devam etti. 1995 yılında hazırladığı ikinci bir dosyayla Gençlik Kitabevi Ödülü aldı.
İlk romanı ''Yere Düşen Dualar'' edebiyat çevrelerinden çok iyi eleştiriler almış, [[Fransa]], İsveç ve [[Almanya]]'da da yayımlanmıştır. [http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=209267] [http://www.zaman.com.tr/webapp-tr/haber.do?haberno=556976]
İlk öykü kitabı Ortadan Yarısından 1997 yılında yayımlandı.
2000’de yayımlanan, aynı yıl Cevdet Kudret Edebiyat Ödülü’ne değer görülen Sandık Lekesi yazarın eleştirmen ve okurlar tarafından en sevilen kitaplarından biri oldu.
Yazar daha sonra Doyma Noktası (2002) ve Esir Sözler Kuyusu (2004) adlı iki öykü kitabı daha yayımladı.
Yazarın bütün öykülerinden derlenen özel bir seçki, Kürt Yayınevi Lis tarafından Üşüyen/ Efsiri (2008) adıyla Türkçe/ Kürtçe iki dilli olarak yayımlandı.
[[Atlas (dergi)|Atlas]] dergisinde [[coğrafya]] yazıları yazmayı ve "yaratıcı okuma" üzerine atölye çalışmaları yapmayı sürdürmektedir.
Yazarın 2007 yılında yayımlanan ve ünlü fotoğrafçıların katkılarıyla belgesel nitelikli bir çalışma olan Öbür Yanım ise, ülkesindeki farklı din, mezhep ve etnik gruba dahil insanların inançları üstüne yazılmış bir izlenim kitabıdır.
Sema Kaygusuz’un ilk romanı Yere Düşen Dualar 2006’da çıktı. Edebiyat çevrelerinde büyük beğeniyle karşılanan bu roman, Vatan gazetesinin yaptığı soruşturmada son 25 yılda Türkçede yazılan en iyi 10 romandan biri olarak gösterildi. Akademik çevrelerde ise Bilkent Üniversitesi Genç Eleştirmenler Sempozyumunda bildiri olarak sunuldu ve Türkiye’de birçok üniversitenin Türk Dili Bölümlerinde müfredata alındı. Roman, Paris - INALCO'da (Doğu Dilleri ve Medeniyetleri Ulusal Enstitüsü) 2007 öğretim yılında Türkçe edebi çeviri dersinde, Göttingen Üniversitesi’nde ise “Modern Türkçenin edebiyata yansıması” konulu bir dizi seminerde incelendi. 2008 yılında da Yere Düşen Dualar Hamburg Üniversitesi Türkoloji Bölümü’nde ele alındı.
Yere Düşen Dualar 2008 yılında Alman yayınevi Suhrkamp, Wein und Gold adıyla, Şubat 2009’da Fransız yayınevi Actes Sud tarafından La Chute des prières adıyla yayımlandı. Eser, Şubat 2012’de İsveç yayınevi Ersatz tarafından yayımlanacak. Yere Düşen Dualar, Ecrime Çeviri Ödülü, Fransa Türkiye Ödülü ve Balkanika Edebiyat Ödülü aldı.
Sema Kaygusuz, Yeşim Ustaoğlu’nun son filmi Pandoro’nın Kutusu’nun senaryosunu yönetmenle birlikte kaleme aldı. Pandora’nın Kutusu, Eylül 2008’de San Sebastian Uluslararası Film Festivali’nde en iyi film ödülü olan Altın İstiridye’yi aldı.
Eylül 2008’de Goethe Enstütüsü’nün yürüttüğü Yakın Bakış Projesi’nde yer alan Sema Kaygusuz Berlin’e davet edildi. Türkçe ve Almanca yazan sekiz yazarın karşılıklı bir değişim programı çerçevesinde Almanya ve Türkiye’de konuk olduğu bu projede, Sema Kaygusuz’un Berlin izlenimleri, Goethe Enstütüsü insiyatifinde yayımlanmaktadır.
Şubat 2009’da, Notos dergisinin edebiyat kamuoyuyla yaptığı bir soruşturmanın sonucunda “Türk Edebiyatına iz bırakacak yazarlar” listesinin en başında gösterildi.
Marguerite Yourcenar Bursu’nu kazanan Sema Kaygusuz, Mayıs/Haziran 2009’da Fransa'nın Belçika sınırına yakın bölgesi olan Saint-Jans-Cappel'deki Marguerite Yourcenar Villası’nda yeni romanı Yüzünde Bir Yer’i tamamladı. Roman, Eylül 2009’da Türkiye’de yayımlandı.
Sema Kaygusuz, Almanya’nın saygın bir kurumu olan DAAD tarafından bir yıllık sanatçı programına seçildi. Yazar, aldığı burs çerçevesinde 2010 Nisan-2011 Nisan tarihleri arasında Berlin’de yaşadı.
2000 yılından beri Bilgi Üniversitesi ve Aralık derneğinde ‘yaratıcı okuma ve yazma’ üstüne bir edebiyat atölyesi yürüten yazar, Notos dergisi için zaman zaman makaleler yazıyor.
Yazar, 2011 Eylül ayınca KulturKontakt yazar rezidansında, 2012 Nisan. Mayıs aylarında MuzeQuarter kurumunun organize ettiği sanatçı rezidansında ağırlanacak.
== Eserleri ==
* Ortadan Yarısından (öykü), 1997.
* Sandık Lekesi (öykü), 2000. (ISBN 978-975-293-169-5)
* Esir Sözler Kuyusu (öykü), 2004. (ISBN 975-293-213-4)
* Yere Düşen Dualar (roman), 2006. (ISBN 978-975-293-437-5)
* Öbür Yanım (belgesel metin), 2009
* Üşüyen/Efsıri (Öykü, Kürtçe-Türkçe), 2009
* Yüzünde Bir Yer (roman), 2009
== Ödüller ==
Varlık Dergisi Yaşar Nabi Nayır Gençlik Ödülü, 1994
Gençlik Kitabevi Ödülü, 1995
Cevdet Kudret Edebiyat Ödülü, 2000
Ecrime Çeviri Ödülü (Yere Düşen Dualar), 2009
Fransa Türkiye Ödülü (Yere Düşen Dualar), 2009
Balkanika Edebiyat Ödülü (Yere Düşen Dualar), 2010
== Yüzünde Bir Yer ==
'Yüzünde Bir Yer' edebî bir Guernica
Yüzünde Bir Yer, pek çok yönden ezber bozan bir roman; akıl açan, okurunda değişik edebî bir lezzet bırakan, üslubu özel, kültürel derinliği sonsuz, edebî renk skalasında denemeler barındıran ve çeşitlilik sunan değerli bir roman bence. Bu coğrafyada yaşayan herkes, kendi tözünü ve özünü daha derinlemesine kavrayabilmek istiyorsa şayet, bu romanı okumalı derim ben.
Pakize Barışta, Taraf
“Dersim sürgününü yaşayan bir kadının hikayesi üzerinden koca bir coğrafyanın kan ve acıyla yoğruluşunu anlatan Sema Kaygusuz, yeni romanı Yüzünde Bir Yer ile yine konuşulacak. (…) Bu kitabı bitirinceye kadar elinizden bırakamayacaksınız. O sizi su üstündeki bir yaprağa çevirip başka başka yerlere, zamanlara götürecek. Bu yolculukta yaşadığımız coğrafyadaki acılar, umutlar, gelmiş geçmiş tüm zamanların anatomisi çıkıyor karşımıza. Kaygusuz 'öğreten adamlık' yapmadan, bilgelik taslamadan 'bilgece' bir hikaye anlatıyor...”
Özkan Güven, Star Kitap Eki
“Hızır söylencesinden, Zülkarneyn’den, kardeşin kardeşi öldürmesinden, Belkıs’tan, Eliha’dan, katliamdan, doğanın talanından, Munzur, Ceysûr, Sırma, Zülfü ve Huriye’nin hikâyelerinden, Doğu ve Batı’nın kutsal ve mitsel figürlerinden, Budistlerden, Şamanlardan, arkaik öykülerden, Kürt destanları ve Yunan efsanelerinden, Tevrat, İncil ve Kuran’dan beslenerek topraklanan roman, Dersim sürgünü Bese’nin ve torununun hikâyesi aslolarak. Babaanneden kız toruna geçen bir kadınlık suskunluğu, bir acı tarih bilgisi, bir sancılı köklenme süreci... Kaygusuz’un tam da incir çağına gelmişliğinin anlatısı.”
Hande Öğüt, Radikal Kitap Eki
Kaygusuz’un dilinde Dersim kıyımına tanıklık eden kelimeler samimi ve sahici bir acının sorumluluğunu taşıyor. Politik bir atıf, ima, çağrı yok kitapta. Bu yüzden köklere vurgu acıyı ayrıştırmıyor, daha fazla hepimize ait yapıyor. Yüzünde Bir Yer, acıyı istismar etmeden Dersim’de yaşananları, kadimden bu yana devam eden kıyımların, öfke, korku, kaygı ve en çok da utancın bir izdüşümü olarak sunuyor bize.
Doğan Ertuğrul, Star Açık Görüş
“Böyle pırıltılı bir yazarı Doğu’nun sınırlarına hapsetmek en başta kitabın tabii macerasına haksızlık olur. (…) Bu küçük destansı roman, hayatta kalanların utancını, katliamlar karşısındaki sessizliğin ayıbını, babaanneden toruna geçen incir ağacının çok katmanlı hikâyesini, dünyaya hakikati görmeden içi boşaltılmış ifadelerle bakmanın sıradanlığını, sırları ifşa etmenin çaresizliğini, insanın iç sesini kendi sözcükleriyle samimiyetle duyabilmesinin sağaltıcı yanını, inancın hayatımızdaki yerini ve aslında bütün bunlardan daha fazlasını anlatıyor.”
A. Esra Yalazan, Taraf
Sema Kaygusuz, insanın en ham halinden başlayarak, ilmek ilmek örüyor hayatta kalma aşkımızı, açlığımızı... Bir sürgünden arta kalanların göğsüne yaslanıp, onların nefesini üflüyor okura. Bu yüzden kitabın her sayfasında, hadi yekten söyleyeyim, her sözcüğünde bize 'utançla kabuklanan bir ruh' sesleniyor.
Figen Şakacı, Milliyet Sanat
Sorgusuz, sualsiz sessizce kabullenmenin, suskun kalmanın utancını, insan olmanın mahcubiyetini, "Bilmiyorduk" mazeretini Dersimli sürgün babaannenin torunu Sema Kaygusuz sorguluyor.
Derya Sazak, Milliyet
Yüzünde Bir Yer' kişilerin kendi tarihlerini ve bir ülkenin 'hafızasını' yitirdiğinde neler olabileceğini beklemediğiniz bir yaklaşımla anlatan, yol açıcı güzel bir kaynak. Sema Kaygusuz, kahramanımızın fotoğraf makinesini kitap biterken elimize tutuşturuyor. Bizden istediği ise mütevazı istek belki de şu cümlede gizli: "Madem yerimizde duramıyoruz, bir sesli bir sessiz iki harf gibi yan yana, dokunaklı bir çığlığın hecesi olalım ikimiz."
Pelin Dutlu, Günlük
“Kaygusuz’un dilinde dünyanın güzelliklerine ve acısına dair şiirsel ne varsa Hızır’da da can buluyor. Bir yanımız hala Hızır’dan medet umarken, diğer yanımızsa bizi Hızır’dan medet umduranlara ileniyor. (…) Yüzünde Bir Yer”, çağdaş Türk edebiyatının en nadide eserlerinden biri olarak yüreğimizdeki yerini kısa sürede almaya muktedir. Şahane bir kitap okumak isteyen tüm okurlara duyurulur…
Oylum Yılmaz, Sabit Fikir
Yüzünde Bir Yer, Hızır söylencelerinin, incirle ilgili kutsallık kayıtlarının vurucu anlatımlarıyla örülü.
Sennur Sezer, Evrensel
== Yere Düşen Dualar ==
“Sema Kaygusuz’un ilk romanı Yere Düşen Dualar, en derinlerdeki kabusların itiraf edilemezliğini haykıran; kimi zaman yeraltında, hatta su altında ilerleyen, bazen sessiz, bazen kadim, bazen de çakıllı, yol aldıkça çoğalan bir anlatı. İnsanı dinginleştiren ve büyümeye çağıran bu yolculuğun sonunda, okur merhamete varıyor. Yazar, Homerosvari imge ve dizemleri, Anadolu efsaneleriyle buluşturarak, hatta Sümer söylenceleriyle temas ederek, kendi özgürleştirici mitlerini yaratıyor.”
Lisbeth Koutchoumoff, Le Temps
“Olağanüstü güzel yazılmış, şiir yüklü bir roman.” Arte TV
“Sema Kaygusuz’un yol güzergahı insana dair bir arayış. Yazarın ilk romanı çok büyük bir yazınsal yeteneği gösteriyor. Derin bir hassasiyet ve masalların özüyle beslenen bir anlatı hazzı yaşatıyor... Sema Kaygusuz’un edebiyatı okuru beraberinde sürükleyen taşkın sular gibi, berrak çağrışımlara açık kıvrımlı bir anlatım. Kökenin gizemini, bireyin biricikliğini ve onun aktarım sürecindeki sancılı arınmasını, yüzüne bakıldığı andan itibaren yaşama anlam veren ölümün zenginleştiriciğini vurguluyor anlatısında.”
Jean-Christophe Ploquin, La Croix
“YDD, her satırında masalların ve söylencelerin yankılandığı yazınsal bir dilin sarmallarına okuru sürükleyen başdöndürücü, duyumsal ve baştan çıkarıcı bir roman.”
Gilles Heurè, Tèlèrama
“Sema Kaygusuz çok güçlü yazınsal bir dille Türk anlatısının kökenini ele alıyor. Yere Düşen Dualar, parlak bir yazarlık kariyerini önceleyen bir ilk roman”
Elle
“Okurun peşini bırakmayan, şiirsel, duyumsal, Homerosvari mitlerden Anadolu efsanelerine değin bütün Doğu imgeleminden beslenen çok dikkat çekici bir ilk roman. Berrak, neredeyse şeffaf diliyle Yere Düşen Dualar bir mesel sadeliğinde. Okudukça bir düşe dönüşen romanın büyüleyici mendereslerinde Sema Kaygusuz baş döndürüyor ve onun rüzgar eşliğinde fısıldadığı dualar tanrısal bir lutfun zerafetini taşıyor.”
André Clavel, Lire
"Sema Kaygusuz’un ilk romanının kalbinde, anlatı, masal, dünyanın güzelliğine ve acısına temas eden lirik bir şiir var. Bir ilk roman olarak şaşırtan ve hiçbir sınıfa dahil edilemeyen Yere Düşen Dualar, yaşama ve duyumsallığa olduğu kadar ölüme - insanoğluna varlığını tam olarak hissettiren yegâne gerçeklik ölüme – yazılmış lirik bir şiir."
Marc Semo, Liberation
"Yazar büyük bir anlatı yeteneğiyle miti şiirsellikle harmanlıyor. Bir ilk roman olan Yere Düşen Dualar’ın ilk sayfalarından itibaren, kendini edebiyat ve düşlerin arasında hazla kaybeden Leylan’ın güçlü sesi sarıyor okuru. Hem yoğun hem de kırılgan bu roman kahramanı o kadar olağanüstü ki, bu noktada insan Türkçe bilmediği için üzüntü duyuyor."
Nils Ahl, Le Monde
“Sema Kaygusuz’dan kendini bulma, kendini keşfetme ve bireysel özgürlüğe dair çok katmanlı bir roman.”
Andreas Resch, Taz
“Sema Kaygusuz yazdığı ilk romanla modern Türk romanın çizgiselliğinin belki de en uzağında duruyor. Mitik-poetik, derin psikolojik, toplumsal cinsiyet eleştirisi taşıyan, müzikal ve tılsımlı, karanlığa içkin ama aynı zamanda şiirle tesir eden, kökensel bir metin.”
Von Martin Zähringer, Frankfurter Rundschau
“Okunması kolay olmadığı kadar duyarsız da kalınamayan bu başına buyruk roman, yarattığı aydınlanma anlarıyla okurun eleştirel gücünü sınıyor.”
Angela Schader, NZZ
“Sürükleyici, çok güçlü, yer yer ürkütücü, muhakkak okunmaya değer.”
Karin Geidl, Lemeus
"Yazar genç yaşına karşın sahip olduğu yaşam bilgeliği ve güçlü kültürel donanımını, okura bilgiçlik taslamandan, akıl hocalığına soyunmadan metne dokumuş; yeni edebiyat estetiğinin bilincinde; edebiyat sanatçısının asıl ediminin "biçimlendirmek" olduğunu biliyor. Yere Düşen Dualar'ın Türk Edebiyatı'nın en iyi romancılarından birinin doğuşunu belgelediğini düşünüyorum."
Yıldız Ecevit
“Yere Düşen Dualar gerçekten de sıra dışı bir roman olarak edebiyatımıza bir gurur tacı gibi kondu. (…)Sözcüklerin birbirlerine eklenirken ne denli dolaylı, düşündürücü, anlam taşkını oluşları yanında, bunu üstelik uzun ve dolambaçlı olmayan tümceler içinde ortaya koyma biçimlerine bakarak, Sema Kaygusuz'un son yıllarda yazılmış en güzel roman dilini kurduğunu da düşünüyorum. (...) Yazınsal dilin kendini bu zengin biçimlendirme ve Türkçenin olanaklarını son kertede kullanma kararlılığı içinde sınırlı hayatları anlatmak, o hayatları bu kez bütün ayrıntılarına işleyen, dipsularına kadar ne var ne yok bulup çıkaran bir derinlik kazandırıyor metne. Yere Düşen Dualar, okyanus suyunun derinliği ve arılığında bir anlam yoğunluğuna sahip oluşuyla da benzerlerini son yıllarda çok az okuduğumuz romanlardan.”
Semih Gümüş, Radikal Kitap
“Yere Düşen Dualar en müşkülpesent roman okurunu bile her yönüyle tatmin edecek bir kitap. Ve Kaygusuz'un "has" yazarlığına bir kanıt daha. (...) Yere Düşen Dualar da bize hayatın mutlak bir anlamı olmadığını ve onu tek bir kitap içinde açıklamaya kalkışmanın imkânsızlığını söylüyor. Binlerce kitap okuyup hepsini yakan ve evreni tek bir kitapla anlatmak arzusuyla tutuşan Useybia'nınki gibi bir cinnettir bu. Ama yapabileceğimiz bir şey var: Kendimizi anlamak. Bunun için de yola çıkmayı, ne kadar tekinsiz olursa olsun geçmişe bakmayı, sislerimizi dağıtmayı ve yalanlarımızla yüzleşmeyi göze almalıyız. Yalınlaşmak için yalansızlaşmak gerekir çünkü.”
Handan İnci, Cumhuriyet Kitap
“Yine de gerçek edebiyatı özleyen bir okur olarak Sema'nın beni bunca çarpan, hayrete düşüren o bembeyaz kalbî dilinden bahsetmek isterim. İsterim ki; roman türünün bunca öne çıktığı, ivme kazandığı böyle bir zamanda roman türünde kalem oynatanlar Sema Kaygusuz'un diline baksınlar biraz. Biliyorum ki 'Yere Düşen Dualar', teknisyen yazarların hızla çoğaldığı bu ortama bırakılmış gerçek bir edebiyat eseri olarak, bir inci gibi ışıldayacak.”
Birhan Keskin, Cumhuriyet Kitap
“Ve mekanlarını, kişilerini, hikayesini, doğa, hayvan ve insan arasında bugüne geldiğinde bayağılaşan, masal çağında şiirselleşen mücadeleyi, insani tutkulardaki derinliği ve basitliği sergilerken kullandığı zengin sözcük haznesiyle etkileyici bir anlatım kurmuş Kaygusuz.”
Ömer Türkeş, pandora.com
“Yere Düşen Dualar, insanın üzerindeki yükleri ne denli zor taşıdığının ürpertili bir mesnevisi gibi. Üstelik romanı sanata yaklaştıran ne varsa cömertçe sunmasıyla anımsanacak bir kitap.”
Gürel Ormancı, Varlık
“Yere Düşen Dualar, bireyin varolma huzursuzluğunun aile trajedisiyle bağlanarak işlendiği, adayla sembolize edilen dünyada kişisel çürümenin çevresel yansımalarının gösterildiği ve huzursuzluğu çözmeye çabalayan bireyin gerçeküstü bir düzlemde kendine yolculuğunun romanıdır.”
“Yere Düşen Dualar’da yeniden kurulan ikinci gerçeklik düzlemi, ilk bölümdeki acıya verilen şekil gibidir; somut gerçeklikten ayrılan hikâyelerde yazarın çevreye bakışında ve olayları alımlayışında kullandığı dil estetiktir. Hem değişen dili hem de anlatının niteliğiyle modernden epiğe, somut olandan mitsele evrilen gerçeklik, kişisel olandan yola çıkarak genel bir soruna “varlık-ölüm” ilişkisine açılır.”
“Çevresel ve doğal yozlaşma, çürüme şeklinde insanlarda da devam ederken, anlatıcının amacı, hiçbir tanrının kurgulamadığı bir dünya tasarlamak ve varlığın huzursuzluğuyla aşınan ruhları arındırmak olarak gösterilebilir.”
M.Gökşen Buğra, Varlık
“Romanın önemli özelliklerinden biri de Kaygusuz’un erkeğe has deneyimleri/pratikleri kurgularken kurduğu dil. Erkek dilini altüst ederek kuruyor hikâyeyi. Sıradan bir sakal tıraşını öylesine dramatize ediyor ki, o yalınlık usturanın ucunda şiddete dönüşüyor. O dramatik sahnenin korkunçluğunu, her an birini boğacak durumda olan berber ve başını ona teslim etmiş kişiyi betimlemesi, bir kurban ritüelini andırıyor. Estetik bir tıraş sahnesi, zevkten şiddete evriliyor. Bir şiddet dilinin yansımasıdır sanki. Diğer pratik de güreş müsabakası. Tam üç kez bir güreş müsabakasını ayrıntılarıyla dramatize eden anlatıcı, son derece maskülen olması gereken dili feminen kılıyor. Kabalık, ifadelerde dişilliğe bürünüyor. Güreş sahnelerinde tıraş sahnesindeki anlatımın tam tersi bir duygu veriyor, anlatıcı. fiarapçılık ve balıkçılık gibi erkek deneyimlerini aktarırken kurduğu dil çok daha farklı.”
Ahmet Sait Akçay, Hürriyet Gösteri
“Yere Düşen Dualar', çok katmanlı yapısıyla dikkat çekiyor. 'Üzüm' ve 'Altın' olmak üzere iki ana bölümden oluşan kitap, yazarının, üzerinde dört yılı aşkın bir süre çalıştığı düşünülürse aceleye gelmemeli; okurken de anlatırken de onun sarmallarına uygun bir ritim tutturmalı. 'Yere Düşen Dualar', karakterleri ele alışı, kurgusu, mekan ve zamandaki kaymaları nedeniyle bir roman kuşkusuz, ancak hem biçemi hem de türler arasındaki sakınımsız yolculuklarıyla bir destan, bir masal ve hatta bir söylence olarak da nitelendirilebilir.”
“Dilin evreni, Sema Kaygusuz’un elinde bir çembere dönüşüyor. Kaygusuz, bu çemberin çeperlerine çarparak anlatıyor meramını. Bu ‘çarpma’yı iki şekilde yorumlayabiliriz. İlki, mecazi bir yorumla, Kaygusuz’un kelimelerle yakın temas halinde olduğu. Yazar, kelimeleri en yoğun içerikleriyle kullanıyor -ki kendisi ifadesinin zenginliğiyle öne çıkan bir isim- ama yanı sıra, sınırsız gibi görünen dilin de bir sınırı olduğunu hatırlatıyor.”
Sema Aslan, Milliyet Sanat
== Biography ==
Sema Kaygusuz
Sema Kaygusuz was born in 1972 in Samsun. Owing to her father’s itinerant military career, she lived in various regions of Turkey. She spent most of her childhood in rural areas and small cities, where she had the opportunity to be closely acquainted with the complexity and cultural diversity of her country. The author’s sources of inspiration remain to be the wide range of folk tales, legends, and stories, which she excavated from various dialects and languages during her travels.
Throughout her college years in the capital of Turkey, she made her own radio show focusing on art. Her early works, which she produced during these years, were published in the literary magazine, Patika. After graduating from the Department of Communications at Gazi University in the summer of 1994 she moved to Istanbul. Later that year, her portfolio containing her first series of short stories received one of the most prestigious literary awards, the Yasar Nabi Nayır Prize for Young Writers, established by the leading literary journal Varlık. She began to publish these works in several noted journals such as Kitaplık, Adam Öykü, and Düsler Öyküler. In 1995, she won the Gençlik Kitabevi Prize for her second series of short stories. In 1997, Can Publishing House published Ortadan Yarısından (Straight Through the Heart), author’s first book of short stories. Sandık Lekesi (Chest Stain) (2000, Can), second collection of short stories won the prestigious Cevdet Kudret Literature Prize and received wide public acclaim. Doyma Noktası (Saturation Point) (2002, Can) and Esir Sözler Kuyusu (The Well of Captive Utterances) (2004, Dogan Kitap) are the last two collections of short stories published by the author. Lis, a leading Kurdish publishing house, made a special selection of her stories to be printed in the bilingual book Üsüyen/Efsiri (2008).
After an extensive research on the cults, rituals and popular beliefs prevailing in Turkey, she published Öbür Yanım (My Other Side), a documentary book that features, along with the author’s observations, works by renowned photographers with whom she collaborated on this project. The author’s first novel Yere Düsen Dualar (Prayers Falling on Earth) was released in March 2006. As literary circles praised the novel, a survey conducted by the daily newspaper Vatan placed the novel among the best 10 books published in the past 25 years. The book was also mentioned in a bulletin that was presented at the Bilkent University Young Critics Symposium which paved the way for its inclusion in the curriculum of Turkish Language and Literature classes of many universities all across the nation. The novel was also studied at INALCO (National Institute for Eastern Languages and Civilizations in Paris) during the 2007 academic year in a Turkish translation class, as well as in a class titled “Reflection of Modern Turkish in Literature” taught at the Göttingen University. For the 2008 academic year Yere Düsen Dualar was covered in the Turcology Department at Hamburg University. In 2008, Suhrkamp released Yere Düsen Dualar under the title Wein und Gold, and in February 2009 French publishing house Actes Sud published the book with the title
La Chute des prières. The latter received the Ecrimed-Cultura translation award in November 2009, France-Turquie award in March 2010, and Balkanika award in November 2010. The novel is to be published in 2012 in Sweden by the publishing house Ersatz and in Greece by Kedros.
In 2006, Sema Kaygusuz co-authored the movie script Pandora’s Box together with Yesim Ustaoglu, an internationally acclaimed Turkish director known for her feature films Journey to the Sun and Waiting for the Clouds. Pandora’s Box won the Golden Shell for Best Film Award at the Sebastian Film Festival in 2008. In September 2008, Kaygusuz was invited to Berlin as part of the project Yakın Bakıs (Close Glance), which is an exchange writers program between Germany and Turkey. Goethe Institute published her observations on Berlin as part of this initiative.
In February 2009, the results of a literary poll conducted by the leading literary journal Notos placed Sema Kaygusuz at the top of the list of “writers who will be most influential in Turkish Literature.”
After receiving the Marguerite Yourcenar Scholarship, she spent two months (May/June 2009) in Saint-Jans-Cappel at Marguerite Yourcenar Villa to finish writing her latest novel Yüzünde Bir Yer (A Place on Your Face), which came out in September 2009. Right after the novel was published, it triggered heated debates in literary circles as well as others because it touches upon the taboo subject of the massacre that took place in Dersim in 1938. The author also presented a paper on guilt and remorse at a symposium organized at the European Commission in
Brussels. The French translation of Yüzünde Bir Yer will be published in 2012 by Actes Sud.
Sema Kaygusuz spent 2010/2011 in Berlin as part of an artist-in-residency
program funded by DAAD, one of the most distinguished institutions in Germany.
=== YERE DÜŞEN DUALAR (PRAYERS FALLEN ON EARTH) Abstract ===
YERE DÜŞEN DUALAR (PRAYERS FALLEN ON EARTH)
Abstract
Yere Düşen Dualar is a polyphonic novel that relates the malaise of existence in the context of a family tragedy. Offering multiple levels of reading, the work has such a complex narration that it is not easy to embrace all of its aspects at once. This arrestingly rich novel consists of two apparently distinct parts that eventually communicate with and clarify one another.
The first part titled “Üzüm” (Grape) has its setting in a small island and depicts the inner turmoil of a young woman, Leylan, whose life has been shattered by a mother that ran away and a father that immured himself in an utter silence. The islanders subsist on viticulture, and the process through which the grapes are transformed into wine serves as a metaphor to illustrate the maturation of Leylan’s own life. Leylan’s incapability to exist in the concrete reality of the island leads her to take refuge with a fortuneteller. She seeks the peace of mind in the reality of auguries and interpretation of dreams. Disposed to resolve the family tragedy by breaking her father’s silence, Leylan constructs her own imaginary world based on dreams and a return to her past.
The second part titled Altın (Gold) leans on the legends and symbols to recount the dramatic story of Yâşur, his mother and their kinsmen who have been struck by the curse of immortality. Narrated in the form of an epic and with the underlying notion that legends are metaphors of the present, the second part is impregnated with mysterious atmosphere of the Anatolian and Mesopotamian cultures from which the author always nurtures herself.
Yere Düşen Dualar is a novel that incites a circular reading. Its prose is constructed through a myriad of intricate narratives that resonate and unfold within one another. It both relates the individual’s painful experience of passage from childhood to the adulthood and demonstrates the terrifying characteristic of human life that inexorably moves towards uncertainty. The Nature is a hidden character of the novel, a character that repeats itself, realizing a rebirth through each cycle of her life. In this regard, Yere Düşen Dualar can also be considered an ode to Death as the only phenomenon that can make us feel our existence intensely.
Yere Düşen Dualar is written in a vigorous and daring style. In its concentrated and intricately detailed prose, the identities of the personages constantly change, all characters inscribe themselves in the universe of the plot with their own particular language and voice, and omniscient author is entirely negated. The usage of language is incessantly problematized and the narrative styles are put into question. In this regard, the novel stands out as one of the singular works in the contemporary Turkish literature.
===Review by Handan İnci ===
Handan İnci, Assistant Professor of Turkish Language and Literature
March 2006
Literary Supplement of Cumhuriyet
Translated by Zehra Cunillera
A MYSTICAL BULDINGSROMAN: YERE DÜŞEN DUALAR (PRAYERS FALLEN ON EARTH)
“An extensive study is needed to decipher the deep meaning of the novel and better explore the masterful construction of its multi-layered narrative. Yet for now I can say this much: Yere Düşen Dualar (Prayers Fallen on Earth) is a work that could satisfy even the most fastidious reader in every sense of the word. And it evidence once more Ms. Kaygusuz’s genuine mastery as a writer.”
The first novel of a short-story writer is always read with a certain hesitation. This is especially so, when the writer is brilliant in the short-story genre. I began to read Sema Kaygusuz’s novel with this feeling. From the very first pages, the impressive style of Ms. Kaygusuz made me ascended to the peak of pleasure of reading. But you can have an idea about a novel only when you reach the last page; when you grasp the whole. I should confess that before beginning to read, I had leafed through the subheadings and the chapters of the novel and worried about whether I would be reading a series of short stories enfolding side by side. When I finished reading the last page, however, I found a novel which is constructed with amazing subtleties and worked up in-depth. All these stories do not cause any interruptions as I had thought before; on the contrary, they serve to integrate the narrative by sewing it with invisible seams. And the end product is a “complete” novel, which is the work of a master.
Ms. Kaygusuz’s novel strikes the reader first with its form. It consists of two parts which at first sight seem disconnected with each other, to the extent that each part in and of itself can be considered “a good novel.” On the other hand, in a reading through which one follows the connections between these two parts the novel reaches to a perfect wholeness and persuasiveness. There are some passages, for instance, that perfectly fit in the integrity of first part but they do not have any other deeper meanings. Nonetheless, when we read the echoes of those passages in the second part we understand how rich they are with associations. In this respect, Yere Düşen Dualar demands absolutely a circular reading. It is not a novel that one can read from the beginning to the end and finish it up. We can better savor the taste of the first part only after having read the second part. This construction perfectly correlates with the plot. The novel is based on the stories of humankind that repeat themselves in one another. On the one hand, it tells the individual’s adventure of growing up and on the other hand it recounts the horrors of immortality and a life without an end. As a matter of fact, the Mother Nature has a cyclic life that repeats itself, and each repetition is a rebirth; but she can realize this cyclic life only through death. In this regard, the novel is also an ode to death and the sorrow of death that “makes us strongly feel our existence.”
The stories told in the novel complete this construction by re-creating and repeating themselves. There are three concentric circles consisted of stories of parents-children. These are the stories of Kudsi Karaca and his parents, Leylan and her parents, and finally Yâşur and his parents. These are the people whose lives continue in the story of the other. As the author says, we are just like the Russian dolls, nesting in one another:
“Or are we born into darkness? Do we spend our lives by becoming inured to our existence that is nothing else but the reflection of the other? Won’t we ever be able to extricate from our chests the sad solitude of the Russian dolls, the matrioshkas? (...) Perhaps everything was as it should have been. The entire mechanism was exactly the same. Every member of the household had a nature analogue to one another. Everybody’s alter ego was connected to that of their antecedents. We were burying each other by repeating a mutual story over and over again. (pp. 116,117)”
The Ache of Growing Up
Yere Düşen Dualar is the novel of a journey that has been repeated over and over again since the birth of the humankind: Searching for oneself, growing up, attaining the truth of the universe and reaching to a completion... All these themes are treated through the two adolescents’ painful growing up processes and the quest they set off searching for their own realities in particular as well as the meaning of the existence in general. Growing up is always sorrowful and violent. In the axes of the novel we see the children whose journeys are interrupted because of their parents. Mothers who run away, leaving a chasm in the interior landscape of their children; a kid who cannot manage to settle old scores with her father and thus cannot grow up; the patricide... With this respect, the novel provides a pretty rich material for psychoanalytical studies.
The first part of the novel unfolds in an island. And the second part in a forest and on the road. The first part tells the story of a young woman who tries to rip out her own reality from her father. And the second one is about a son who tries to grow up and at the same time to reach his father’s lost homeland through a long and dolorous journey he has set off together with his mother. As opposed to relatively concrete element of Time that we find in the first part, the Time is uncertain in the second. While the former indicates life, the latter marks the legend. We now know that “every legend is a metaphor of today.” The second part of the novel leans on the legend not only in terms of Time but also in terms of the language of the narration and the story itself. It is possible to read the second part as the augury of Leylan and her father. Besides, the author describes what the fortuneteller says to Leylan in the first part and implicitly refers to what will happen in the second part through the diction of augury.
Ms. Kaygusuz has chosen for her novel the settings such as “island”, “mountain” and “forest”. Those places have very strong associations. They are also very dangerous because they have often been (re)used in literature. The author makes use of the many-layered associations attached to these places for ages, at the same time she adds them some new contents. In the first part which is an island story, the author makes us feel the island’s embedded-ness into the sea and the suffocation that wraps the inhabitants of the island through a narration piled up layer over layer. And also through “grape”... This mythological fruit is used as a metaphor for life that ferments in an inertia and matures up with patience. And the metaphor of the second part, which is the story of a quest and a journey, is “gold.” In the novel, gold is distillated from blood. And it symbolizes both the invaluable substance in the kernel of the human beings and the fact that one can find this kernel only by going out on a quest. And thus, the grape that produces the blood and the gold that is distillated from blood complete one another: To find oneself and to get matured with patience. In the same vein, the island and the mountain complete one another, because “Every mountain is born from a real sea.”
In the first part of the novel, the narrator is a young woman living with her father. In reality, they are two kids abandoned by their mother. The father, Kudsi Karaca, can never uproot from his bosom the grief of abandonment, a grief that upsets all his being. His daughter Leylan lives through the same grief years later. When her mother was gone, the time of her growing up got frozen. The development of her sexual identity was interrupted. She remains as a “man-woman” inside her. The day when her mother left them, her father opened up a void in her face. But in order to fill this void, Leylan needs his father’s language. Only when she listens to her own story from her father’s mouth will she be able to avoid rotting slowly in that island, a place where she is left to oblivion. In the novel, to rot means not to be able to die. The ones who are struck by the curse of immortality are doomed to rot without savoring the peace of death. Leylan is locked up in the story of her father, her mother and her uncle; she will not be able to start living before she captures her own story. Therefore, she pores over the past that she describes as an “uncanny place” and inquires her father, but when she takes out one of the matrioshkas she finds nothing but a kid crying for the loss of his own mother.
Familiar Issues
What makes Yere Düşen Dualar a striking novel is the way it treats some pretty familiar issues with a brand new breath. Grape, gold, road, mountain, forest, water, quest, to undergo an ordeal, horse, ring, to write and to be written... In order to show the way all these metaphors -which have almost been depleted due to the overuse- are brought together through very rich associations, we would need to write a separate essay on each of them. All these metaphors not only add a certain depth to the narrative but also determine the structure. As it is the case in the connections built up between “grape/kernel/wine/intoxication/dream.” The kernel becomes a grape when it is covered with flesh; the grape becomes wine after years of ageing... It is a journey repeated for thousands of years. Just like the adventure of human beings... And wine, in the novel, signifies our lives that get fermented in Time. Wine acquires its characteristics from both its kernel and the way it is processed. When we get intoxicated from the wine which carries the secret code, the kernel of our lives, we reach down our substance, and the doors are open to our dreams. For instance, every night when Kudsi Karaca gets drunk from the wine that he himself has made, he dreams about a terrified boy lost in a forest.
Leylan identifies herself with the grape, and calls her father a “plunderer of grapes” who does not show any respect to the wine he drinks. Thus, she tries to make her father drunk with the wine she has made so that she can dig out his secrets. But she cannot manage to get the results she expects, because everybody can dream of the wine in which they mix their own yeast. And Leylan too will find a way-out for her predicament in a dream she dreams about when she is drunk with the wine made by her own hands. In her dream, Leylan takes the authorization and blessing of a wise storyteller and bites the biggest part from the “marshmallow of parables.” From then on, providing she can succeed in looking into herself and embodying everything that she sees, she can tell a story with every bite.
Towards the end of the first part Leylan begins writing. With the text addressed to her father she is now capable of looking inside her, but she is not a consummate writer yet; just like herself, her text is incomplete... The text is full of lacunae with half phrases and blank lines. Leylan’s text resembles her: the half woman “who was purged out untimely from her mother’s body and became a sentence that prolongs by itself.” On the one hand, this is an indication of the fact that she has not reached the secrets in her existence yet, and on the other hand, it shows that she cannot manage to incarnate the people whose stories she tries to tell (her mother, her uncle and her father). Furthermore, Leylan’s identification with the forgotten books is also the expression of a similar kind of lacking that that we see in the issue of incomplete text. She builds up a library that she named as “Southwester Library” with the books that she collects from different places all around the island; she tries to complete these forgotten books by reading them from where their owners left off.
After her dream, Leylan wears a ring that she has distillated from her blood (taking up the pen?) and starts carrying “an imaginary book” on her head; she has a “scheme” now. It is a scheme that will make her forget the incompleteness and abandonment that she sees every time she looks at the mirror: She is going to “attempt to praise the will to go away, seeing that she cannot deal with the abandonment.” And in this way, she could save her father to whom she says, “Both of us may reach to a wholeness that I will construct outside of myself.”
The second part of the novel is consisted of the “imaginary book” that Leylan recites his father. She tells the story of her family, giving them different names, not in the genre of autobiography, the genre she “can’t stand in any style”, but in the diction of legends that she finds more real than actual life. In this part that is full of much more intense symbols than the former, the language of the narration becomes lyrical. Elegies written in verse and prayers add that constitute different planes of narrative add an archaic tone to the narration. We can almost feel the breath of Gilgamesh, Homer and Dede Korkut.
In the second part that Leylan describes as “the story-cum-antidote” and “the tremble that purifies the soul” the frame story is the long and painful journey that Yâşur and his mother embark on. In this journey, Yâşur strives to overcome both the grief of losing his father and the rage he feels for her mother Ecmel who becomes a “man-woman” disguising in man’s clothes and thus deprives him of a mother. He puts himself on a trial by venturing at various adventures and thus acquires a name. By the way of listening to parables, his left eye opens after being blind since his birth and he sees the truth. And he joins his mother whom he leaves for all those adventures and parables, and eventually deserves the right to go back to his father’s homeland. So they bring his father’s corpse, like a harbinger, to their kinsmen who are cursed to immortality. These people carry the sin of their ancestors and they are doomed not to die because they cannot dispel the fog of their past and face their lies. Every spring, one of them goes out on the roads to find death and never comes back. Yâşur’s father was one of them.
In every novel there are some phrases that gives away directly what it wants to tell. You underline them, and say “That’s it!” In Yere Düşen Dualar there are quite a few phrases to be underlined in this sense. To give but one example, I can quote a passage where the soul of Yâşur’s ancestor that he has been qualified to identify with after defeating his opponent in a wrestling tournament speaks to him as follows:
“Sometimes we build for ourselves an equilibrium that is not visible to the naked eye. This equilibrium seems totally random, but it is in fact absolutely voluntary; and it hurls us away from the cosmic realities. Our senses become slick. Everyone gets stuck with the same relative existence. That is confusion, my son. For some people the world is an edge. For a passionate mathematician the universe is nothing but numbers; for a Phoenician who lives on the sea there is no earth’s crust apart from his boat. Thus, life is sparkling so much as it can be explained, but it is pitch-dark when it remains unexplained. And in this darkness, there is only faith, my son. We need faith in order to appropriate this scanty life in which we were born... (p.325)”
And Yere Düşen Dualar convinces us that there is not an absolute meaning of life and that it is impossible to explain life in one single book. Attempting to do so would make us as lunatic as Useybia, that medieval scholar who was obsessed with the desire of explaining the universe in one single book, read thousands of books and then burned them all. But there is something we can do: to understand ourselves. In order to do this, we should venture to go out on the road; to look at the past, however uncanny a place it is; to dispel our fogs and to face our lies.
Another aspect of the novel that needs to be emphasized is the author’s mastery of language. In Yere Düşen Dualar, Sema Kaygusuz displays once again how inexorable a “wizard of language” she is. Especially in the second part, she demonstrates in a masterful way the power of language in shaping the content. She perfectly creates her own style with a timbre of the age-long narrative traditions.
Process of Degeneration
Despite the fact that it is not set within an obvious civilization period, Yere Düşen Dualar contains some critiques on contemporary times that we are living in. For instance, we can mention the degeneration process the cause of which is the urban intellectuals who come to the island for pastoral escapades in the first part of the novel... These people who do not have the psychology of living in an island cannot get rid of the desire of being “visible” and they make the island visible together with themselves. The island attracts the interest of the capital and immediately enters a process of degeneration in which it will lose its serenity, culture and ecological balance. The passage that describes how tourism violently transforms the culture into goods is the most striking critique I have ever read after Oğuz Atay’s “Wooden Horse.”
And in the second part, we come across some people who become one “giant eye” in the fairs where the handicapped and freaks are exhibited. The appetite of these people who demand bigger bites each time and want to watch until they “feel full, vomit, disgust and kill” is very familiar in today’s world. On the other hand, the desire of some object-people who pine for “being seen” in the same fairs is also pretty familiar.
To conclude, I should point out that it is difficult to present this novel in a few pages. Wonderfully constructed and eloquently written, it is the work of a master. Yere Düşen Dualar is a novel with so many rich subtexts the study of which cannot be squeezed in a short review. An extensive study is needed to decipher the deep meaning of the novel and better explore the masterful construction of its multi-layered narrative. Yet for now I can say this much: Yere Düşen Dualar is a work that could satisfy even the most fastidious reader in every sense of the word. And it evidence once more Ms. Kaygusuz’s genuine mastery as a writer.
=== Review by Semih Gümüş, April 2006 ===
Review by Semih Gümüş, one of the prominent Turkish literary critics.
April 2006
Literary Supplement of Radikal
Translated by Zehra Cunillera
What do we expect from a novel?
It is one of those questions that we never give up asking even though we cannot find clear and definite answers to them: What do we expect from a novel? Concrete expectations are always related to the plot whereas emotional and intellectual expectations to the literary quality of the text that could be evaluated only through its effects on the cognitive world of the reader. I ask this question to myself as I read Sema Kaygusuz’s novel Yere Düşen Dualar (Prayers Fallen on Earth). What do I expect from Yere Düşen Dualar? My position may not be a criterion, of course, but to tell the truth, I didn’t have any particular expectation as I read it.
Sema Kaygusuz belongs to a new generation of Turkish writers. She distinguishes herself by the way in which she consciously accentuates the act of creation by transforming the language into a laboratory in which writer and reader struggle together toward the meaning of life. Considering the current literary scene in Turkey where the connection between language and literature remains unexplored more often than not, we find Sema Kaygusuz’s first novel all the more outstanding.
A Dynamic Style for a Complicated Story
The way the potentials of the language are used in Yere Düşen Dualar demonstrates how instrumental the words are in the composition of creative expressions as well as in capturing and shaping the imagination. Sema Kaygusuz proves her competency in excavating the latent power and rich vocabulary of Turkish, without having recourse to simply multiplying the words so that the language could breathe, as it is mostly done nowadays.
The plot of Yere Düşen Dualar is complicated, but its rhythm is very energetic. Sema Kaygusuz strings the words together in an indirect and provocative way, eliciting a myriad of interpretations and associations on the one hand, and she masters in creating a clear and concise prose on the other hand. Exploring incessantly the possibilities of the language, she has constructed one of the most exquisite Romanesque styles in Turkish in recent times.
Without taking pain, I just open a page from the novel randomly and quote a passage below in order to support my argument.
“I was walking along the winding streets heedlessly. A longing for far-off places in my heart, I was measuring the far-off on those pavements I knew inside out. What was the far-off? My mother, of course... What else? The spiral in the fine taffeta mulberry leaf! And it was to discover the similarity of all places within that spiral. And what does a mountain mean? A river? Walls surrounding a city? An aqueduct creeping into the city? A bridge? What do all these and the rest that I don’t know mean? All of a sudden, I found myself in front of the soup restaurant. It was the 29th of August. The shadows retreated in the evening light. (p. 125)”
A Novel Recounting Itself
Open any page from Yere Düşen Dualar, and especially from the first part titled “Grape”, you can easily find passages that even surpass the one I just quoted above by the richness of their connotations and associations as well as by their multiple layered meanings. You can find striking phrases, expressions and words that make you savor unforgettable flavors. One can feel it clearly; in this novel, each phrase and each idea was worked up in depth and with subtlety before being written.
Going back to my initial question “What do we expect from a novel?” everyone should find their own answers for that. I don’t ask this question so that I can attribute meaning to life, to a situation, to extraordinary personages, to relationships or to certain problems. Yere Düşen Dualar perfectly illustrates how a novel can above all recount itself. It is in this self-reflexive literary expression that we can really find the life itself and human experience.
Any passage selected randomly from the novel is remarkable in their literary quality and density. We cannot find any kind of glittering, superfluous formulations put here and there with a sheer objective of ornamenting the text. Rather than relating the lives of the inhabitants of an island in an artificial way, Sema Kaygusuz succeeds in, with a competence unparalleled among her contemporaries, bringing out the feeling of oppression, the meanders of solitude and the fissures that render the islanders voiceless.
Life and Details
Eager to enrich the literary language itself and explore the possibilities of Turkish, Ms. Kaygusuz recounts the insular lives, describing the characters down to the under waters of their psyches. And thus Yere Düşen Dualar acquires an intensity of meaning as deep and clear as the waters of the ocean.
Leylan is not an ordinary female character that we generally come across in novels with an island as their settings. In order to be able to understand Leylan, we have to take refuge in the public library where she finds solitude and a way of escape from the inhabitants of the island; we have to plunge into her collection of abandoned books; we have to grasp the nature and history of her relationship with her father and her lover; last but not least, we have to share her passion for the vineyards. Leylan has a power of imagination that outmatches the craziest aspirations of the ordinary inhabitants of the island. Her strong personality forces her to face her incapacity to live as a “normal” islander. Although, or perhaps because, the environment cannot nurture her intellectual and emotional world, she lives all those scrappy relationships with enormous intensity.
Exiled to Herself
Rather than interpreting that she is a stranger in her island, we would claim that Leylan in fact positions herself as an exile in her hometown. She willingly chooses to live in her inner world. Nonetheless, as the world of her creation is embedded deeply within the suffocating environment of the island, she cannot quite manage to escape from the reality altogether. Furthermore, Leylan is the only narrator of the first part titled “Grape”. The position of narrator offers her the solace for being incapable of living in the real world, giving strength and self-confidence to her. And through this powerful narrator/protagonist, Ms. Kaygusuz finds more opportunities to enrich the possibilities of narration.
The commentaries on Yere Düşen Dualar tend to celebrate the quality of the first part “Grape” whereas emphasizing that the second part “Gold” doesn’t seem to be as impressive. Obviously if we expect that the second part should complete the first we can easily be disappointed. In fact, the second part can be read as a fairy tale that would eventually present an allegory for the first part. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the two parts are not independent from each other. Although some critics go too far as to suggest reading the second part as a separate novel in its own, I don’t find this position plausible. The “Gold” part is an allegory of the “Grape” part, and it should be read so. There are some moments of life that the author doesn’t want to grapple with in the first part where she contends with merely exploring the quotidian details in the island. Then it is in the second part where she chooses to treat, with a liberating literary force, the nightmarish aspects of life embedded in the minds of the author and the reader alike.
A Dark and Brooding Novel
Yere Düşen Dualar can be defined as a dark novel that explores above all the obscure and evil meanders of our existence. In an interview, Sema Kaygusuz expresses her thoughts and feelings with regard to her first novel as follows: « I wrote this novel thinking from my chest, putting the human heart at the center of my work. I want to touch at human soul. I want to push the readers to look at their souls. » For me, she is one of the very few writers whose works and public statements entirely overlap. There is no doubt that Yere Düşen Dualar elevates the novel genre to a new plane of inquiry about the depths of the human heart.
I think this novel demands extensive studies on its various aspects and subplots such as the character of Leylan in the “Grape” part, the connections between the “Grape” and the “Gold”, the strange relationship between Ecmel and her husband, to mention but a few. It is also essential to study the effect produced by the reading of this novel, its origins and the new frontiers it opens up in Turkish literature.
=== Commentary by Yıldız Ecevit, Professor of German Language and Literature; author of diverse works on literature. ===
Commentary by Yıldız Ecevit, Professor of German Language and Literature; author of diverse works on literature.
March 2006 / Literary Supplement of Zaman
Translated by Zehra Cunillera
The power of Sema Kaygusuz to transform the world and the most complicated species in it, the human being - with all its natural postures down to its most mysterious depths – into the language is astonishing. The delicate and beautifully detailed prose of Yere Düşen Dualar (Prayers Fallen on Earth) creates a special language that has been acquired magical colors with image-intense, poetic, mythic/mystic/cosmic strokes of brush. The author, despite her young age, has the wisdom of life and a strong cultural baggage. She has weaved her erudition to the text without assuming the role of a pedantic teacher for the reader. Her novel does not feel contrived or didactic. She is aware of the new literary esthetics. She knows very well that the primary act of the literary artist should be to “give form.” This delectable first novel announces the birth of one of the best novelists of Turkish literature.
== Dış bağlantılar ==
* [http://www.dogankitap.com/kitap.asp?id=520 Doğan Kitap] - Yazarla ilgili kısa bilgi.
* http://www.taraf.com.tr/pakize-barista/makale-sema-kaygusuzun-yeni-romani-yuzunde-bir-yer.htm
* http://www.taraf.com.tr/ayca-orer/makale-sema-kaygusuz-burasi-kirik-aynalar-ulkesi.htm
* http://www.stargazete.com/kitap/sema-kaygusuz-gecmisin-izini-suruyor-haber-216614.htm
* http://blog.milliyet.com.tr/Sema_Kaygusuz___Yuzunde_Bir_Yer/Blog/?BlogNo=260077
* http://www.radikal.com.tr/Default.aspx?aType=EklerDetay&ArticleID=957266&Date=10.06.2011&CategoryID=40
* http://www.goethe.de/ins/tr/lp/prj/cub/aut/kay/trindex.htm
* http://www.sabah.com.tr/kultur_sanat/edebiyat/2009/10/28/dersimin_utanci_hl_uzerimizde
* http://kitapzamani.zaman.com.tr/kitapzamani/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=1909
* [http://www.milliyet.com.tr/ozel/kitap/130306/4.html Milliyet Gazetesi] - Sema Aslan'ın ''Yere Düşen Dualar'' romanıyla ilgili yazısı.
* [http://www.milliyet.com.tr/ozel/kitap/020410/tadimlik.html Milliyet Gazetesi] - ''Doyma Noktası'' kitabıyla ilgili ropörtajı.
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