Screenshot of the Woolf-inspired Instagram account, “Kendine Ait Bir Oda”
A new writing platform for budding writers interested in Virginia Woolf aims to be a beacon for Woolfian writing in a language other than English. “Kendine Ait Bir Köşe” (“A Corner of One’s Own”) calls for writers, junior scholars, journalists and artists to submit their Woolf-inspired essays, stories, poems, letters, and memoirs in Turkish.
Drawing on the idea Woolf shares in Three Guineas (1938): “As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world,” “A Corner of One’s Own” serves as an archive for Woolfian writing in the Turkish language, according to founding editor Professor Mine Özyurt Kılıç.
Submissions should be on the current theme offered by the platform and are limited to about 500 words. For more information, contact Mine Özyurt Kılıç at mozyurtkilic@gmail.com.
The platform was launched following the “Virginia Woolf in Turkey” project in January, which was supported by the British Council.
Where to find it
You can find the project on host Yasemin Bahloul Nirun’s Woolf-inspired Instagram account. The podcast itself, “Kendine Ait Bir Oda” (“A Room of One’s Own”), can be found at @kendineaitbirodapodcast via Substack on social media and in audio format on Spotify, Apple and Google podcasts.
The project offers a “room” for writers by sharing the best essay in text. Previous winners who wrote Woolfian essays inspired by A Rooms of One’s Own (1929) and To the Lighhouse (1927) are available on these platforms. The writer of the first essay, Tuğba Duzak, has translated her piece and shares it here with the international Woolf community.
Pursuit
By Tuğba Duzak
Before reading Virginia Woolf’s novel, lighthouses, for me, have been the symbol of hope and new opportunities. Considering the generic function of the lighthouses, it was second nature to think of them as a light of life. The light emanating from the lighthouse, connecting a sailor, who was desperately trying to find their way, to life has always filled me with an indescribable joy. That is why, for me, the symbol of hope has always been lighthouses. Nevertheless, when I read Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, that belief turned upside down. The lighthouse, which is used as a symbol of unattainability in the book, destroyed the symbolism I had built in my mind with what can be called a childish naivety, and left a huge disappointment in its place. I had no light to lead my sailor home safe and sound anymore. I lost the way home, and to myself.
My thoughts might sound a bit sombre, given that nobody likes losses. But, are they really that bad, just because we do not like them?
Lately, losing is a notion that I have been pondering over a lot. It is an action that happens independently of the person, with our hands tied. We cannot lose something on purpose, actually, the ignorance of the person creates the state of being lost, for that reason, it is as if it always evokes despair in humans.
Sometimes we lose someone we love. Rather than saying “She died.” we say, “We lost B.” I wonder why we do that. Whose feelings do we take into consideration when we say, “lost”? We lost her, yeah. Traffic accident. Yeah, it’s hard, she was married. No kids, no. Yeah, we lost her.
Lost, as if we could find them, if we look for them, flesh and blood. As if not dead but hidden. Here you have humans, people who cannot give up on their hopes even in death. This persistent disregard of death, an inevitable part of our lives, makes me feel bitter inside. I think I find the saying “losing time” interesting the most. How do we lose time? Let’s say we did, how do we get back the lost time? Can we do it? It is hard to give an answer. Even though we are aware that time cannot be regained, why can’t we accept this and find proper expressions? The hollow denial we have saddled this remark with astounds me greatly. It is comical to lay the responsibility of our self-deception on these two words.
Nevertheless, I still like this term, losing, as it is an indication of the expectation in humans; and because the act of losing harbours the possibility of finding as well. We lose our way, our belongings, and sometimes ourselves. Then our pursuit begins. Even if we know we cannot find it, we tediously rummage around everywhere, in the hope of finding it. We find our pen, which got lost two weeks ago, under the bed; somehow, it rolled over there. Then we sit down, and continue to find ourselves from where we left off in empty pages. We write. Finding the words buried in hidden depths again, we embrace them. We catch them as if playing hide-and-seek, tagging them triumphantly. We continue to advance in the hope of reaching the meagre light spreading from the lighthouse on the corner of our minds.
April, 2023
Editor’s Note:
Mine Özyurt Kılıç is the co-creator and organizer of the Woolf-related event series, “A Press of Ones’ Own: Celebrating 100 Years of Hogarth Press“ (Harvard U) and Virginia Woolf in Turkey and 100 Years of Literary Modernism (1922-2022),” which included translation and printing workshops, a Woolf inspired exhibition of Turkish contemporary art, and author meetings. She has designed and taught the first all-Woolf BA and MA course in Turkey, and she organized the first-ever Dalloway Day in Turkey in June 2021 where she commemorated and introduced Suzanne Bellamy and Susan Stanford Friedman to the Turkish speaking Woolf community.
Yasemin Bahloul Nirun’s podcast series has created an inspiring room by promoting young women who make their living through producing works in arts and culture. Since its debut in 2021, there have been nearly 30 interviews with young musicians, curators, artists, filmmakers, journalists, businesswomen, all of which are available on social media platforms. She has recently organised a writing workshop series in the footsteps of Julia Cameron’s The Artists’ Way.
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