Sine Ergün

Sine Ergün (1982) is a writer based in Istanbul, Turkey. She has published three books: Burası Tekin Değil (It’s not Safe Here, Yitik Ülke Publishing, 2010; Can Publishing, 2012), Bazen Hayat (Life, Sometimes, Can Publishing, 2012) and Baştankara (Titmouse, Can Publishing, 2016). In 2013, she received the 59th Sait Faik Short Story Award for her book Bazen Hayat(Life, Sometimes). Her translation works, essays, interviews, poetry, and short stories have been published in several literature magazines, and Ergün herself has worked as an editor at Notos Book and edited Notos magazine. Since 2012, she has been working as the founding director of the art initiative maumau. She is currently preparing her next show as a curator as well as working on an anthology on Bartleby Syndrome – the Writers of No.

Baştankara (Chickadee), 2016

The book's 23 stories in 80 pages are succinct: the shortest story is just one page long, the longest six pages, plainly written with depth and variety. Each story is an independent being, inviting the reader to start a new challenge.

Her Decree With Force of Law (Kanun Hükmünde Kararname) is a political satire on a highly abstract level: it is realistic, though also dreamlike. That story in itself could be considered sufficiently enlightening with regards to the situation in Turkey.

The concluding piece illustrates the overall atmosphere succinctly: a truck driver, after many years of solitary driving, is unable to leave his truck any more and sits nailed to the steering wheel. This indeed is an unnerving parable of the human condition.

In her stories, the themes she deals with are: alienation to oneself and to others; facing mediocrity; coming to terms with the past, the present and the future; revolt to inner and outer pressures; challenging your reality; seeing your city, your environment and your surroundings with different eyes; making choices; and looking deeper and deeper into one's soul.