Introducing Literary Liberties
Name is Mehmet, Cypriot born and bred, British by accident. Heir to farmers and musicians, mystics and publishers, a political philosopher by profession and a former Turkish diplomat who, by way of Kenya and China and a strange turn of fate, ended up in Sheffield a taxman by trade. Now returned to my home island to scribble away on my own account.
But if I’m asked to boil down my essence to one word, I’d say I’m “literate.”
I write. I read. Not always in that order. Not always consecutively.
I write as I please. I am 41, so really, I shouldn’t be asked to do otherwise. Wouldn’t be fair.
I learned typing as a child on a real, run-of-the-mill typewriter. I pity the generations who won’t get to experience that privilege. To me, my laptop is still that: a typewriter, albeit a glorified one deprived of the right kind of noise.
I read so that I can breathe. And when I say “read,” I mean lifting the cover and turning the pages of an actual book. Let’s see if that remains fashionable in a couple of decades. In capitalism’s retro-fetishism I trust.
I caught the bug of publishing very early on. In fact, I was born into it. My parents had published their own current affairs magazine for 23 years. I don’t have any siblings, but that bilingual monthly was definitely like a big brother to me.
I envied it like a big brother, too, as I attempted to publish my own magazine around the age of nine. Despite the magnanimous sponsorship of my mother and commissioned contributions from my father, it only lasted two issues. Here, I hope to last longer.
