On Life & Everything — Hakan Altun
First time here?
Three doors in.
- For essays On Lying
- For fiction The Lines Between Us
- For the book Şafak’s Arc
Latest
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It Was Not a Question
Zero Degrees
1 “Do what you want,” she said. “Go wherever you like.” He said nothing. “İyi yıllar.” She hung up. The invitations had arrived in December, and they had arrived for two people....
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The Lines Between Us
The Woman on the Page
Emre came to Kaş because of Cem. They had been friends for ten years. Cem had spent the first of those years in an office in İstanbul and the rest of them...
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Michi
Seventeen Umbrellas
Sora counted seventeen umbrellas at the foot of the first gate. It had rained in the morning, the quicksilver rain that came and went before the vendors had finished arranging their charms....
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It Will Be
The Twenty-Three Kilos
Rain runs down the café window. The three men sit at the table by the window. A newspaper lies open between them. The street door opens. Two women come in under one...
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Thinking Is for After
The Cracked Plate
Shadows stretch across the walls. Her mother’s plates form stacks on the table. Newspapers rest beside them. Crates cover the floorboards. Mara spreads a newspaper flat. She lifts a plate from the...
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Written in Ink
The Unwritten Year
In Bologna her mother handed her the tablet across the kitchen table, in a white box with the lid still creased. The tomato sauce moved in folds on the stove and the...
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Let’s Have Some Cheese
Close Enough to Belong, Far Enough to Forget
I have never been good with weddings. Still, I went. I went because Esra, the bride, was a dear friend. We had not seen each other in years, and there are friendships...
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None of Us Are
The Hunger to Remain Apart
We were standing outside Teacher’s Bar on a Saturday night. We had been sitting inside for hours—talking, drinking, breathing the same air for so long that stepping outside felt like waking up....
Further back
Notes
I was reading Cat in the Rain and thinking about the iceberg theory. Is it right to leave the audience this much room?
You mean a when you say it. Some take it as b, some as c, and some just think, What the hell is this? But yes, that’s the beauty of it.
Instruments
A fullscreen clock, a blank page to write on, a teleprompter, noise and rain, İstanbul’s twilight—17 instruments for work, calm, and focus.
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