ZEYNEP PEHLİVAN

İzmir- Asiye Yalçın was born in Hopa district of Artvin province. She came to İzmir in order to study at university and she graduated from the Department of Archeology at Ege Univesity. She couldn’t do her own profession, but she worked as an administrative staff in a private company. She has lived in İzmir for 10 years. She decided to stay in Izmir because has a more social life and makes friendships in İzmir. Asiye has been away from her hometown for a while and has practiced her native language Homshetsi in order to not forget it. Asiye took notes of stories in Homshetsi told by her family elders and people around her and now she is fictionalizing these notes and turns them into stories. Being written in Homshetsi language in order to keep it alive, these stories have been published by Gor magazine. 

She took notes of the stories told her in Homshetsi

Asiye’s writing adventure begins thanks to notes she took since her childhood. She first took these notes to not forget what things told by her family elders and people around her. And later she started to tell everyone what is written in the notes. Then she decided to write stories from these notes she took in her native language when she was alone.

“Living with my grandfather and grandmother in my hometown was a great advantage for me. I grew up with my grandfather and grandmother and I learned how to speak Homshetsi from them. They always told stories. That time, I was a child and I didn’t know how those stories were precious but now I understand how they are precious. I took notes of what I heard from them. I wrote to them in order to remember them. I wrote down them because I thought maybe I would tell someone and we would talk about their (her grandparents)memories. Then I read the notes again and began to tell them to people. One day I found myself adding something to the notes. After some technical arrangements on the notes, I started writing stories. When I tried to translate the notes into Turkish, they lost their meanings. So I wrote them in Homshetsi. 

After my grandmother died, I took note of what I felt. When I looked at the box, I first saw this note. First I edited it and wrote it in story form. So I started writing them in my native language. Of course, our language is one of the languages about to be forgotten. While writing stories, I had difficulties because I forget most words. When I had difficulty, I asked my uncle Hikmet Akçiçek for help. I also got help from Gor Magazine for writing the words. When my uncle liked the content and flow of that first story I wrote, he offered to edit it together and publish it in the magazine. I was so surprised and not aware that I did such a beautiful thing. I just did something like this to keep my grandmother's and grandfather's memory alive.”