Alev Alatlı

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Alev Alatlı, born in 1944 in Menemen, İzmir, is a Turkish writer.

Biography

Born in İzmir, Turkey, in 1944, Alev Alatlı finished high-school at the American School in Japan - Nakameguro, Tokyo (where her father was assigned as the Military Attaché to the Turkish Embassy, also serving as the Liaison Officer to the UN of the Turkish Brigade in Korea) and received her BS in Economics at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey.

Upon graduation in 1963, she married classmate Alper Orhon, a Turkish Cypriot. Together, they went to the USA to further their studies: she with a Fulbright Scholarship and he with a grant from the Ford Foundation. Alatlı received her MA in Development Economics and Econometrics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. By this time, she had started to feel that there was “something wrong” in explaining the world in exact figures and formulas and decided that what she should learn was “how to think like a Western." This she did by continuing her education in philosophy, at the Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. “Unfortunately, here too I ran into the positivists," she says, "Left between August Comte and econometrics, I realised that if I was to make any sense of the world I lived in, I had to study theology and history of thought. Time had come to return home and make a fresh start which I did in 1974.”

The next five years passed studying İslam, including visits to Cairo and Jordan. Meanwhile, she also took up various jobs in her capacity as an economist, to make a living, i.e. the Istanbul University, the State Planning Organization in Ankara. Among other projects Alev Alatlı was involved in was a study of language learning patterns of Turkish children between the ages 2-5, initiated by well known psycho-linguist Prof. Dan I. Slobin of the University of California, Berkeley. She then went into creating the highly original periodical called “Bizim English” (Our English), aiming at teaching the English language to Turks, basing it on native tongue and culture. As the Chief Editor of this periodical, she worked in partnership with "Cumhuriyet", the daily newspaper. During the same period, she also contributed to the activities of the Turkish Writers’ Cooperative (YAZKO) in Istanbul. Last but not least, she is the Head of the Board of Trustees of Cappadocia Vocational College which is a grass-roots community college designed to facilitate regional development.

Alatlı lives and works in İstanbul with her beloved daughter Funda, her son-in-law Kaan and two grandchildren.

Works

In 1982, Alev Alatlı was finally ready to start doing what she wanted to do most: Write. Her first published book “Aydın Despotizmi” (Despotism of the Intellectuals) appeared in the same year and was essentially an evaluation of the Turkish intelligentsia whom she accused of contributing to the engineering of the masses and suppression of youthful.

This was followed by her first novel, published in 1985: The 200-page “Yaseminler Tüter mi Hala?” (Jasmines Smoke No More!), which iwas inspired by the true story of an a Greek Cypriot woman. Born and Chrisened as Eleni Klo Morias at the Saint Andreas (the Apostle) Monastery-Church in the little village of Rizo Karpasso on the Karpas Peninsula in Cyprus, she dies in a tragic fashion at 32, at Piraeus, Greece, after two marriages - one with a Turkish Cypriot (Muslim), the other with a Greek (Orthodox) – and five children. The novel basically argues that pressing nationalistic or religious sentiments require conditioning by worldly knowledge and formal education which facilitates speculation. When equipped with neither – as was the case with Eleni - peoples cannot escape the death sentence history and religion condemn them, although they have not participated in building neither of which; and neither of which is anything more than an accumulation of wishful thoughts and forever disputable interpretations of skillful men long dead and gone. Says, Alatlı, “The book offered an entirely new perspective, a human perspective of Cyprus and the Cyprus conflict, which was foreign to most readers at the time the book was published. Turks found the book too pro-Greek and Greeks found it too pro-Turk!”

A year later (1986) she awarded with an Honorary Medal by Yaser Arafat, then in Tunisia, for voluntary translations of books, “Haberlerin Ağında Islam” (Covering Islam) and “Filistin’in Sorunu” (The Question of Palestine ) by Edward Said, were published in 1985 and 1986. Of Said, says Alatlı, “Had I been in the position of being able to do it, I would put Edward Said’s works among compulsory reading in Turkish schools.” .

“İşkenceci” (The Torturer) appeared in 1987; a striking 120 page novelette, which narrates the incredible capacity of the Turkish society for suffering, which, Alatlı argues, is based on deep spirituality not unlike the Russian, "for that matter the Jewish" experience.

“İşkenceci” served as a prelude to the four novels subtitled “Or’da kimse var mı?” (Is there anybody out there?). Says, Alatlı, about her massive work of over a 2000 pages, “The quartet is a study of the challenges to and the struggles, the battles of the Turkish soul, subjected to unending reform attempts at ‘westernization’, i.e. socialism, social democracy, nationalism, militarism, the Islam, the Kurds.” Based on the events and flashbacks between the years 1970-1990, she attempts to hold “the pulse” of the Turkish society. The first of the series, “Viva la Muerte” was published in 1992. The others, “Nuke Turkiye” (Nuke Turkey) and “Valla Kurda Yedirdin Beni” (You Sure Made Me Prey to the Wolves) in 1993, and the fourth novel, “OK Musti, Türkiye Tamamdır!” (OK Mustafa, Turkey's Done!) in 1994. (Please note that the book titles are verbatim translations from Turkish.) The heroine, as well as the narrator throughout the four novels is Günay Rodoplu, who dies at the end, not having been able to make sense to anyone… “'Is there anybody out there?’ was a question I was asking myself,” says Alatlı. “ I was exhilarated when I found out that, yes, there were many souls out there…many, many souls! The problem was that Günay Rodoplu was not aware that she was ‘fuzzy’ soul with a natural gift for multivalued logic, the quantum physics, the chaos, the gaia and the rest." The quartet has made Alev Alatlı a so called “cult” writer, with a mass of followers.

Another best seller by Alatlı followed in 1995: The 350-page highly realistic novel “Kadere Karşı Koy A.Ş.” (Format your Fate Formidably, Incorporated). “I had started out to write it as a play, but it in turned into a novel on the way!” says Alatlı on her tragicomical story of making an utterly undeserving lady into a reowned painter. Complete with sophisticated graphical charts, the book describes the Turkish men’s attitude towards sex and highly creative manipulations of the Turkish women in response.

In 1999, she came up with “Eylül 1998” (September 1998), a 20 page poetry book, on which she rarely talks about.

Alev Alatlı’s thousand page “Schrödinger’s Cat” comprises two books: “Kabus” (The Nightmare, 2000) and “Rüya” (The Dream, 2001). They are futuristic novels on Turkey for year 2020. “Fantastic, rather than futuristic” says Alatlı, “in the sense that the story is based on sciences.” The novels makes projections for the world, namely the New World Order with reference to Bilderberg, Club of Rome. In fact, we note that she even anticipated September 11 as a showdown among the instigators of the post-modern fascism, which - if unchecked - she fears will be the dominating the future of the world. Alatlı's “Schrödinger’s Cat” has inspired an adventure game Culpa Innata, which was rated A+ by Just Adventure.

Presently, Alev Alatlı is working on another four-volume novel on Russia, called, “Gogol’un İzinde” (On the Footsteps of Gogol), the first two volumes of which are published: , "Grace over Enlightenment," "World Sentry" for which she was awarded with Sholokhov Prize in Literature, Moscow 2006. The third of the series, “Ey Uhniyem, Ey Uhniyem” is with the publishers, to be followed by "Sycophants of Logic."

Alev Alatlı has been writing, bi-weekly commentaries for daily newspaper "Zaman", since 2002. Her extensive articles have been brought together in a 250 page book, “Şimdi Değilse, Ne zaman?” (If not now, when?) and her interviews in a 180 page book, “Alev Alatlı ile Türkiye ve Dünya” (Turkey and the World with Alev Alatlı), and “Hayır, diyebilmeli insan!” (One should be able to say, No!) published in 2003-2004, “Hatırla!” (Remember!) 2006.

Books

Novels

*"Aydın Despotizmi", 1982
*"Yaseminler Tüter mi Hala?", 1985
*"İşkenceci", 1987
*"Viva la Muerte (Yaşasın Ölüm)", 1992
*"’Nuke’ Türkiye!," 1993
*"Valla, Kurda Yedirdin Beni!", 1993
*"O.K. Musti! Türkiye Tamamdır.", 1994
*"Schrödinger’in Kedisi-Kabus", 1999
*"Schrödinger’in Kedisi-Rüya", 2000
*"Aydınlanma Değil, Merhamet!", 2004
*"Dünya Nöbeti", 2005

Poems

*"Eylül'98" (September 1998)

Translations

*"Haberlerin Ağında İslam", 1985
*"Filistin’in Sorunu", 1986
*"En Emin Yol “Akvem ül-Mesalik’li Marifat Ahval el-Memalik” Tunuslu Hayreddin Paşa", 1986

Theater plays

"Kadere Karşı Koy A.Ş.", 2002

External links

* [http://www.alevalatli.com/ Personal web site]