Psychic Depths for Adults, Seed Wisdom for Children: A conversation with Pelin Turgut author of Secrets of a Vanishing Country: Fairy Tales for Adults

Luke: Could you start by telling me a bit about yourself and your background?

Pelin: Sure, I am Turkish-British, born and raised in Istanbul. I was a journalist for Time Magazine and before that The Independent and Reuters for about ten years based in Istanbul. At the same time, I founded an independent, alternative film festival called !F which went on to become a pretty huge thing that got screened all over Turkey and the region. From that there also grew a regional script development lab that we set up with the Sundance Institute. So there was that parallel track happening at the same time. For a long time, I thought I’d have several distinct paths. Actually, I've come to recognise that stories were at the heart of everything I did. They were at the heart of the film festival where we used original storytelling to bring people together around controversial things such as LGBT-Q issues, Kurdish rights or things that were really difficult to talk about. We created the opportunity for people to have those conversations around film, which is around stories, working and supporting original filmmakers. And as a journalist, it is the only job in the world where you can rock up anywhere and ask anyone to tell you their story. So in a certain sense, stories have always been at the heart of everything that I have done. Then in 2013, I missed a flight back from the UK to Turkey. There was a cellist who was also waiting in line. She told me that she played often with storytellers. That was the first time I’d heard that word. It had the effect of somebody saying, “Hogwarts exists.” That was how I felt oh my god, it is a thing. I thought it was a thing, but I never knew and now I know it's a thing. So I found the School of Storytelling and literally signed up for the next course they had. I think it was for a weekend initially. Then I signed on for their training. Since then, I’ve been working as a storyteller. I also create storytelling programs with institutions around the world. I coach people around that. I work specifically with a wonderful organisation in the UK called “Escape the City”, which encourages people to move into more fulfilling work stories. I teach there. 

Luke: Given that you have experience in different mediums, film and in journalism, what led you to write a book rather than expressing your ideas in film? 

Pelin: It really is the material that presents itself. I think what I always had was an idea of a series of stories rather than one story that was stretched out and developed. The material came to me in the shape of stories that were interlinked but individual. 

Luke: I had some thoughts about that. When you were writing your book, did you have a clear idea of the meta-narrative or did you write the short stories then write the connections between them to form a meta-narrative? Which way round was it for you and why do you think that was? 

Pelin: It is a really good question. I think I wrote two of the stories that were just standalone, and then came the idea of what would happen if these were actual stories that were being told in a particular context. From that came the bigger context of a group of people who are gathered in a particular place and kind of tasked with telling these stories and the narrator is somebody who is there hearing these stories by accident. It is a device I guess that allows in some way for the different stories to coexist but it also became bigger than that. There was something about those stories coming together and being heard that was somehow significant. 

Luke: I have some thoughts on this and I want to know what you think because I'm in the middle on this storytelling device. I wonder if you were worried that by putting these individual stories into a meta-narrative you risked diluting the impact of the individual stories standing alone. Was that a concern for you or did you trust that the narrative would hold it together?  

Pelin: I did trust it. I also trusted the reader to be able to go at their own pace. I think that there are some stories in there which probably need a pause after you’ve read them. I think I trusted that. I did also trust that there was enough holding them together. 

Luke: Secrets of a Vanishing Country is your first book, so I wonder what you think your influences are. 

Pelin: There are lots. The first biggest influence is that I was a journalist across much of Turkey for about 10 years and I talked to a lot of people and I heard a lot of stories. That is one piece. A lot of stories were told to me, personal stories and folk stories. So there was that kind of soil all of this was coming out of. In terms of writers, Ursula K. Le Guin is very important to me. Italo Calvino is another. 

Luke: Have you read his big volume of Italian fairytales by any chance?

Pelin: I have.

Luke: I dip into it from time to time when I need something a bit whimsical.

Pelin: Exactly, he is fantastic. I should also mention William Wharton actually; I loved his books. 

Luke: You talked about your experience travelling ‘round Turkey and doing a lot of reporting on Turkey giving you this sense of what you wanted the book to be. Could you show me a concrete example where an experience you had in your journalistic career led you into writing a fairytale based on it? 

Pelin: Right. It is hard to be literal with it. There are a lot of details, like the fact that the north of Istanbul was famous for its watermelon fields and its melons. There is an area that was famous even when I was growing up and then it became overdeveloped and the melon fields were lost. There is a lot of that kind of detail. You know there was a spate of young women who jumped off the Bosphorus Bridge and committed suicide. There are details like that that are in there, but I can’t say that entire stories are based on my journalism. There isn’t a true story that the fairytales are drawn out of, it is more that they are infused. You know I went up to the Black Sea near Istanbul where the fishermen set off every morning. I spent time in the village. So there is a story that is set there. So it is more like a seeping-in. 

Luke: When I was reading your book I was reminded to a certain extent of Burhan Sönmez’s Istanbul Istanbul. I’m curious to know if you read that work when you were writing your book. 

Pelin: I haven’t, actually. 

Luke: He’s kind of doing a similar thing to you, but instead of people being gathered in a hotel it is about men in prison telling each other stories, jokes and fables to pass the time. I was struck that there was a similarity there. 

Pelin: It sounds wonderful. 

Luke: Track it down, it's an interesting read. 

Pelin: There is something there. There are places in the world where you are closer to or further from the tradition of oral storytelling. I feel like there are parts of Turkey where you are closer to oral storytelling. I’ve worked with people, teaching them storytelling, who grew up in villages where the storyteller would come through the village, everybody would gather around, then the storyteller would stay for two or three nights, then move on. That is still within living memory, that connection is quite close. There is a connection to folk-culture that is quite close. I had a British storyteller friend come through once, teaching. He said, “What is really interesting is that there are folk songs that everybody knows and everybody can sing. It is across class, age and generation, whereas in the UK if you imagine an intergenerational group of Brits you wouldn’t be able to find a folk song that everybody knew.” 

Luke: Right, you’d be luckier with stuff like The Beatles wouldn’t you.

Pelin: Exactly. 

Luke: Just thinking about Burhan, his being Kurdish, I wonder if he has a stronger connection with traditional storytelling in his life. I should ask him. 

Pelin: Certainly, in Kurdistan you are much closer to an oral storytelling tradition. There are storytellers, dengbej, in Kurdistan who still tell stories in the old ways. If you go to Kurdistan, anyone you talk to, we’d sit down and there would be these long preambles and as a journalist, you always want to get to the point. 

Luke: Thinking how do I bang this down to one thousand words. 

Pelin: Exactly. What I came to realise is that there is an incredible richness to their storytelling tradition. Also that because of the oppression, it compounds an inability to speak directly. It is dangerous. It does make this narrative tradition where you can really meander through stories, metaphors and images to make a point. 

Luke: In your opinion, what is the difference between a fairytale and a fairytale for grown-ups? 

Pelin: I think all fairytales are for grown-ups, but the reason I made that distinction is because, obviously when you say fairytales, often they are for children and I felt there was some imagery in the book—like the thumb-sized girl from the sea who gets raped—that was too much for young readers. Otherwise, I think that fairytales work on both children and adults in different ways. That is the magic of a fairytale. It touches psychic depths for adults and has seed wisdom for children. 

Luke: Do you consider your work to be fantasy or is that not what you are trying to do? 

Pelin: I’ve never thought about it. 

Luke: I ask because I love fantasy and I’m always curious to push at the boundaries of what people consider fantasy to be and what it could be. 

Pelin: I think in some ways it is closer to fantasy than it is to any other fictional category. Yet it is set in a concrete reality that is somewhat fantastic. 

Luke: There is a long tradition of retelling fairytales, using them in new contexts. That is not really what you are trying to do here. You have written your own fairytales. I am curious about why you wanted to make your own fairytales rather than reusing the fairytales that already exist. 

Pelin: The honest answer is that is how the material came to me. It came to me in the shape of very specific images, for instance, the giant who is sleeping under Istanbul. I haven’t read a fairy tale in the Turkish oral tradition about a giant who sleeps under Istanbul. The theme of a giant who sleeps under a place exists in many cultures, however. 

If you look at the imagery, it is not unfamiliar to fairytale imagery that you can find in many cultures. Also, the finger-sized girl from the sea was an image that came to me from the collective fairytale realm. The story that came from those images, you are right, is unrelated to existing folk tales. 

In a way, the potency of a fairytale, when you think about it, is really in the images. That is the kind of alive and potent aspect of a tale. From that I draw a kind of kinship. 

Luke: One of the things I think you have taken from real fairytales is a sense of darkness. A lot of traditional tales from around the world are pretty dark. In your book, you mentioned the finger-sized girl, you’ve got the diver that is a dark tale and the billboard woman has some troubling implications. Talk to me about the tone you were trying to set, by using these dark tales. 

Pelin: So Turkey is quite a dark place. Recent Turkish history is full of a lot of darkness. I think I was being exposed to a lot of that because of my work as a journalist but also because of my work in film and the kind of stories I was in contact with. Also, I came of age in the 90s when war was being fought in Turkey and we were in the shadow of a military coup. I think trying to make sense of that darkness is really important to me. It has been a really important theme for me. It is something that can be overwhelming. I wanted to give it a place where it could contribute to understanding. By talking about the darkness, I was looking for light. There is so much that has been silenced and I think my idea is about by breaking the silence and speaking those dark things you eventually get to light. 

Luke: For you which was the most challenging of the stories to write? 

Pelin:  The Diver. That story was hard to write. It is hard to write about young women committing suicide. It was hard to write about even though it was something that was actually happening. I had a friend who did that. Nonetheless, it felt like it was something difficult to write. 

Luke: How did you push through that difficulty? Did you have a strategy or did you feel the material had to come out? 

Pelin: I think my strategy was to just keep writing. I was good at writing every morning. Orhan Pamuk told me once that he gets up and writes 2000 words a day. He has his writing space and he goes there and he writes 2000 words a day. There is no drama around it. That is his job. 

Hearing that was good for me so I was like, “I just need to keep writing.” That was helpful. 

I was surprised about how dark the book was and I feel a bit strange, but that is how it was. That is also the reality I grew up in and is the reality in Turkey. 

Luke: Was the darker tone the plan, or was it part of the process? 

Pelin: It came out of the process. I think it was very healing for me to write it. I think I had been exposed to a lot of things that were difficult to write about. It is hard to write about people whose children have been abducted by a state militia. It is hard to process those kinds of stories. You really are looking for a way to do that. For me, writing was that way. Even though there isn’t a direct link from the things I was writing about as a journalist and what these stories are about. In some ways, the stories are my way of making sense of things.

Luke: You also collaborated with an artist Bülent Gültek. He is quite an interesting guy and I've looked at some of his work in other places since reading your book. Talk to me about how that collaboration came about and what you think his work adds to the book. 

Pelin: I was really clear that I wanted somebody who would do hand-drawn illustrations. I was really influenced by the fairytale books I grew up with, you know the classics. They had really beautiful illustrations in them. So I was looking for somebody who would have that flavour. A friend of mine mentioned Bülent and obviously, I went through his work. There is something… he does dark and whimsical very well. 

Luke: You’re totally right.

Pelin: I really like that combination because it makes the tone of the book. He tried out one story then the illustration came back and I thought it was just perfect. It wasn’t just that. He understood the stories immediately. He got the tone. It was very easy to work with him. 

Luke: So he read the story and put together an image that he felt worked.

Pelin: Yeah. 

Luke: The overriding metaphor and meta-narrative is of the vanishing country. Could you tease out for me what is the vanishing country? What are you poking at with than name and that concept? 

Pelin: Well, there is a literal answer and there is a fantastic answer. The fantastic answer is I had this image of a country where land was just disappearing into nothingness. The Neverending Story is also based on an image like that. On a literal level, if you take Turkey and think about what happens on its borders, if you think about what is happening in the southeast, there is a relationship with outlying territories that is as if they have disappeared. Do you know what I mean? Because there is this news blackout, you never know. If you are in the West, you’re never told. I think I wrote from the image of this country just disappearing on a literal level. There is that experience of chunks of the country that are not included in the conversation. 

Luke: I wonder if you were thinking about memory as well. I’ve been doing this piece on the Mizrahi Jews in the east of Turkey. They are completely gone now and the knowledge that these Jewish communities even existed is limited, there are not many alive who remember them. I was wondering if you were thinking about memory when you were playing around with the idea of the vanishing country. 

Pelin: Yeah, that is lovely. Yes. There are many ghosts, if you like, in Turkey and many legacies that are being forgotten, willfully or not. In the book what starts to restore the country is the act of telling forgotten stories. Telling the lost stories is what restores. What happened in Turkey is that with the ruptures of authoritarianism and conflict, a lot of the stories were silenced. For instance, I had a great grandmother who was essentially Greek. She came over before the population exchange of 1924 and never spoke Greek nor was allowed to visit her homeland again. So that rupture for me is a great loss of stories on both sides because people moved, got new lives. They lost their language as well so they couldn’t speak of them. 

Luke: Even the change from Ottoman Turkish to modern Turkish caused a lot to be lost. 

Pelin: Exactly. There is this big loss which for me is the void of the disappearing country. This series of losses hasn’t been attended to. Part of the restorative movement is naming the loses and giving them a place. For me, that is part of the restoration of a sense of wholeness and a sense of integrity. 

Luke: My last question to bring this to a close. What are three books you’d recommend? 

Pelin: Ok. I’ll start with a book I read recently. Richard Powers wrote a book called The Overstory which is a fantastic novel that spans different characters over a number of years and it is about trees. It has an element of the fantastic to it. It is a fantastic, intelligent, really moving story. I really love it.

I would go with The Earthsea Quartet. I’ve probably read it twenty times. 

Luke: Can I ask how old you were when you first read it?

Pelin: I was probably in my early 20s. It wasn't when I was a child. I read The Left Hand of Darkness first. Then I found the Earthsea Quartet. I wish I’d read it when I was younger. 

Luke: I feel exactly the same. I wish I’d read Earthsea when I was thirteen. 

Pelin: Yes! That is exactly the age that came to me. I wish I’d read it when I was thirteen too. 

Luke: It is an odd thing to read a book and feel like, “wow, my younger self would have dug the hell out of this.”

Pelin: I know…. My third recommendation would be a Jane Austen novel, any one.