Books

And...Or...Maybe...

A young psychiatrist, Eylül, works in a mental hospital. While trying to solve her patients’ problems, she discovers that she, too, has many unanswered questions. She can’t help feeling uneasy and begins to question her marriage and her relationship with her husband.

She can’t run away from seeking her own existence. She’s thrown into chaos. She asks herself: ‘What is reality? Can the facts of our lives change according to our perceptions? Or do we prefer not to perceive the facts, as we fear facing reality? Isn’t this self-betrayal?’

Yes... But... As If...

.Journalist Seçkin Ersin receives an anonymous letter suggesting that there’s material for an exclusive and explosive story if he observes Ilgım, the wife of a prominent businessman. It is part detective story and part chronicle of the developing attraction and love between journalist and prey, and it explores the absurdity of how men see women and how the male gaze has conditioned and dominated perceptions of the female.

Undressing Herself

Can a woman get undressed by herself?” This question is the key to a woman’s never-ending inner journey, which requires lots of courage and self-honesty. The protagonist of the novel, Lal, represents the modern type of woman living in a big city, Istanbul. She deplores the fact that a woman has to be so brave to undress herself in order to exist in this world ruled by men, and this prompts her own journey.

She starts with an attempt to become free of social, religious and ethical obligations, and she faces the challenge of being aware of herself and her sexuality and gets to know her body. The book is highly focused on the relationship between women and men, and it brings to this relationship a radical change in perspective.

Stop Hurting My Flesh

When in 2004, the Turkish state became alerted to this RISK, and “Stop Hurting My Flesh”, whose themes included incest, was banned. The grounds for this ban were “Destroying the Turkish family order, offending the Namus, (which translates as virtue, chastity, or honour, of society) arousing sexual desire in the readers and disturbing the order of society by inducing fear within women, by using a feminist approach.” GUILTY.

Stop Hurting My Flesh is the story of four courageous women, Sude, Ada, Derin and Çakil, who have succeeded in existing by undressing their bodies and facing their fears and traumas. The protagonists now desire to reach new women to help them start their own existential inner journey. They gather in an ancient house located on the Aegean lands that have been a cradle for many civilisations in history.

You Exist In No Way

Rüya (meaning ‘Dream’), meets with Kaya (meaning ‘Rock’), who is a pretty tough character. But Rüya knows that love needs patience, effort, responsibility, making choices and knowledge. Here comes the main question of this novel: ‘Is there wisdom in love?’

Hope Is A Curse

Inanna, the protagonist of ‘Hope Is A Curse’, is a physics professor. She starts a relationship with a theatre director. With his encouragement, she begins to write a play, ‘Hope is a Curse’. During this creative process, she has to re-live her past, face the reality of the people she is surrounded with, and she questions both love and her own existence.

The Body Knows

This is Meltem Arikan’s first research book, is written for women and men who want to communicate with awareness of each other’s differences.

The Tempest of Yearning

By denying our own personal pains, we have created the current world where the absence of love is called love. Today, perhaps what lies beneath the hypocritical life we have reached is denial. Denial of the need to confront the deadly fear we have for the pains we’ve engraved within ourselves. Pain and empathy are strongly related to each other, and oppressing pain destroys empathy. The more we are open to pain, the more capable we are of feeling empathy. As long as we continue to refuse to understand the link between the denial of our own pain and its alliance with authority – rather than being an expression of internalised behaviour – (morality) will be nothing more than etiquette.

So it is this phenomenon of how women in pain punish themselves and how the guilt complex passes down to women from their mothers and grandmothers, alienating them from life. The worry of not being loved, the feeling of being estranged from yourself…either the freedom of pleasure or the captivity of fears….

Erospa

Meltem Arıkan’s latest novel is different in style than her former ones. This time she provides her readers with artistic blends between reality and phantasy. The universe we enter is highly digital and rather inhuman. Hackers have become the masters of the future and rule over mankind via computer programs. In a world full of violence and evil, they try to establish a new world order by using their own sense of justice. Their vengeance consists of organising the extinction of mankind. One of these seekers of justice is Erospa whose real identity is a mystery. On different time levels, we get to know all those who wish to destroy the world in its current state. They are convinced that man as God’s creation is a complete failure. God himself, the son of Ana Server, is so disappointed by the forms of human life he invented that one day he tries to commit suicide.

Only Thing They Knew Was Love

Meltem Arıkan’s most recent novel. As was already the case in her last book Erospa, we once again come across an artistic blend of reality and fiction. What is most striking is maybe not so much the story itself but its unusual structure as well as the writer’s skilful play with words and different narrative techniques, including regular poem-like interruptions, a traditional fairytale and dialogues in SMS style. This technique of writing a novel within a novel makes the reader draw parallels between the inner conflicts of both women. It is not a coincidence that İnci Tanır sets her story’s plot in Wales to create a geographical distance between herself and her fictional characters. The love story she describes is a mix of unhealthy power games and supernatural elements, showing women as omnipotent witches and weak, oppressed individuals at the same time. More often than not, love is experienced as a source of danger and manipulation, wiping out the few moments of happiness that came with it.As its title clearly tells, Meltem Arıkan’s novel is about love in its many shades. Those who know a bit about her main concerns in life, may also find her general observations about power games, nature, violence against women and the urgent need for emotional emancipation insightful. Her philosophical digressions on the purposes of writing and the modern phenomenon of multiple identities are also worth thinking about.

I Confess I am Guilty

An essay book of Meltem Arıkan’s essays, testimonies and poems she wrote over the years… As soon as I left the door of Cardiff station… The first day I came to Wales from Turkey, where I had to leave with a suitcase… The play I wrote was “Mi My life became more absurd than Minor.. It was hot in the summer when we got out of the station. My once banned novel, my published books, my struggle, my speeches… Accusations, harassment, threats… Author Meltem Arıkan… Everything is like today. Starting everything from scratch in another country… Being tried with aggravated life imprisonment… How can I explain what to whom? Where should I start… Which one should I tell… Continuing to write in desperation and the silence it created… I am shocked, angry, sorry, but I think I am most offended…

You Are The Medicine

You will read first-hand experiences from carers, highlighting the various issues encountered whilst providing care towards their loved ones and those in their care.