Consisting of narratives penned between 1994 and 2004, and awarded second prize in the prestigious 2010 Orhan Kemal Short Story Contest, my collection originally debuted as YAZI in September 2014. Now, this decade-spanning journey meets English-language readers worldwide as Heads & Tails (published by Paragraf / Cinius).
In Heads & Tails, the boundaries of reality dissolve into a radiant tapestry of surrealism and magical realism. These interlocking short stories masterfully interweave primordial legends with the ephemera of modern life, pulsing with magical energy, every page brimming with wonders. The intoxicating clash of mythical and cartoonish icons with richly etched modern souls ignites these tales’ mesmerizing allure.
Heads & Tails embarks you on a luminous philosophical odyssey through the labyrinthine depths of human consciousness, societal tapestries, and the eternal enigma of mankind itself. The journey’s conclusive stride often emerges right where everything commenced. Although the crux arguably resides more within the expedition than its culmination, human inquisitiveness inevitably hungers for the result… Conversely, it holds true that the odyssey and its conclusion can metamorphose the voyager… Thus, have you ever contemplated the extent to which “absence” can confer “gravity”? Or how the omission of a central link within a chain can amplify its weight rather than diminish it?
Allow Heads & Tails itself to unravel the remainder:
On the contrary, it was “absence”… Yes, what weighed on me was the absence of something that should have been, should have been experienced. It had never occurred to me that a ring missing from its center would make the chain heavier rather than lighter…
God help us all, when I saw myself like that at the beginning of a bridge with a violin by my side, I won’t lie, I was frightened. As for the man, when their eyes met, he pointed with his eyes at the change that was falling into the violin case at that moment and said:
“Love is like flipping a coin;
you get the head you go ahead,
you get the tail you write your tale.”Then looking at the change that had fallen into the case, he finished by saying, ‘It’s tails.’ Upon this, our fellow opened his bag and took out a book, offering it to the man. There was a picture of a mermaid on the cover. I tried to read the title of the book, but in vain… The man opened the last page of the book and read the last sentence and smiled.
Where to Find Heads & Tails
You can purchase the print edition of Heads & Tails through Amazon, as well as major online book retailers in different countries.
