10-12 OCTOBER 2025
Contemporary Turkish Cypriot Literature
15:00
DISCUSSION
Conversation with Ahmet Yıkık, Tuğçe Tekhanlı, Halil Karapaşaoğlu
Gender Issues in Contemporary Turkish Cypriot Poetry
Dr. Ahmet Yıkık will give a brief introduction to contemporary Turkish Cypriot poetry from a gender perspective. He will discuss this topic with young poets Tuğçe Tekhanlı and Halil Karapaşağlu, and the poets will present samples of their poems. The event will conclude with an opportunity for the audience to ask questions.
The beginning of modern Turkish Cypriot literature can be dated to the second half of the 19th century. The general trends in Constantinople and the interactions of Cypriot writers with the leading poets-authors in the capital of the Ottoman Empire are key factors in the development of a Western-style literature on the island. Thus, modern plays, short stories, novels and other new literary genres begin to develop. Poetry, the most widespread literary genre, is renewed both in terms of content and form. Until the 1940s, the presence of male writers is mainly observed in literature. This is undoubtedly evidence of the patriarchal character of social life. However, due to the democratic nature of literature, in fiction there have always been, in addition to male voices, female voices as well as other trends that transcended social constraints. Reaching the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, Turkish Cypriot literature is influenced by regional and global developments. Gender, as one of the key components of individual identity, is directly or indirectly reflected in the works of contemporary Turkish Cypriot writers and poets. In this panel, an academic and two young poets will examine gender in the context of contemporary Turkish Cypriot poetry.
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF CONTRIBUTORS
Halil Karapaşaoğlu was born in Psyllatos in 1985. He studied English Language and Literature. He obtained a master's degree on the representation of robots in science fiction cinema. He is currently conducting his doctoral research on Turkish colonialism. He published the poetry collections Acı Biberli Aşk ( Hot Pepper Love ) in 2013 and Ahir Zaman Âlemi ( The World Before the Apocalypse ) in 2020. He is the editor of the literary magazine KerPiç ( Clay ). Since 2025, he has been writing his poems in the Turkish dialect of Cyprus as an act of civil disobedience.
Tuğçe Tekhanlı was born in Nicosia in 1990. She is an award-winning poet, translator and dancer, and writes in Turkish and English. She received her BA in Translation and Interpreting from Hacettepe University and completed her MA in Creative Writing from Dublin City University in 2022, where she graduated with honors. She has published two poetry collections, with her latest, Dalgalara İsim Verdik ( We Named the Waves ), to be released in 2023. Her poems have been published in many international literary journals and anthologies, such as Abridged , Cyphers , Skylight47 and The Seventh Quarry . Adopting an interdisciplinary approach to art, she creates contemporary dance performances inspired by her poetry.
Dr. Ahmet Yıkık was born in Kyrenia to parents originally from Limassol. He teaches Ottoman and Turkish Literature at the Department of Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cyprus. Using a sociological approach to literary texts, he explores human nature, focusing on issues of identity, migration, gender and prejudice. He is the author of the books Edebiyatın Kıyısından Sesler Kıbrıs'ta Yazma Uğraşları (Voices from the Periphery of Literature: Writing from Cyprus , 2022) and Kıbrıs Türk Edebiyatında İlk Tefrika Roman: Bir Bakış (The First Serial Novel in Turkish Cypriot Literature: A Glance , 2021). In addition, he contributes to Cypriot literature as a critic, translator and editor.