cyprus art news - 27 - Poetry performance - Mehmet Yasin and Alev Adil at Sidestreets

Heidi Trautmann

27 - Poetry performance - Mehmet Yasin and Alev Adil at Sidestreets 4/2/2009 Mehmet Yasin and Alev Adil at Sidestreets Poetry performances and book signings Wednesday, April 8, at 7.30 pm Sidestreets is pleased to present, in association with the bookstore Işık Kitabevi, an evening of poetry performances by Mehmet Yasin and Alev Adil. In the warm atmosphere of Sidestreets, Mehmet Yasin will perform poems from his new book “The Time the Heart Stopped,” and Alev Adil from her book “Venus Infers.” The performances will be followed by discussions and participants will have the opportunity to have their books autographed. The photo is from last year's poetry performance with Mehmet Yasin.
Mehmet Yasin (b. 1958, Lefkoşa) lives between Cyprus and Cambridge, where he lectures and does research on literature and translation studies; he has taught courses and led creative writing workshops at Sabanci University and the University of Middlesex. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Pathos (1990), The Promising Armchair (1993), Fantasy Repair (1998), Don’t Go Back To Kyrenia (1993), His Name on the List of Missing (1993), the novel Hours Outside Borders (1993), and the experimental works Poeturka (1995) and Kosmopoetika (2002). His 1985 work My Love the Dead Soldier was awarded the first prize of the Turkish Academy and the A. Kadir Poetry Prize; his 1994 novel Your Kinsman Pisces won the prestigious Cevdet Kudret Novel Prize. His edited works include the Anthology of Turkish Cypriot Poetry (1994), Stepmothertongue (2000), and the Anthology of Cypriot Poetry (2005) which was awarded the Memet Fuat Criticism prize. Five of his books were published in 2007: Collected Writings 1978-2005, Collected Poems 1977-2002, Hours Outside Borders, Your Kinsman Pisces, and a volume of poetry, Orange Bird. A unique eight-volume anthology of Cypriot literature edited by Mehmet Yasin has just been published (2009). The bilingual anthology set, which covers every period and civilization of Cyprus, and includes all the texts in English translation, is expected to become the standard reference on the literature of Cyprus. Mehmet Yasin’s works are currently being translated into several languages, and several of his works have appeared internationally in 2008: a poetry collection in French, Constantinople n’attend plus personne; Bleu autour, trans. Alain Mascarou); a collection in Italian, Il drago ha anche le ali (Argo, trans. Rosita d’Amora); a collection in Lithuanian, Vecas dziemas no Jaunās pilsētās (Adrina, trans. Uldis Berzins); and a DVD of his poetry in Russian (NeMe, trans. Julia Stepanchuk, ed. H. Black). Alev Adil was born in Cyprus and grew up in Turkey, Cyprus and London, where she now lives. Her first collection of poems Venus Infers was published in 2004. Her poetry has appeared in magazines including Agenda, Angel Exhaust, Mantis, Cascando, Issues in Contemporary Culture and Body Politic; in Turkish and Greek media including Hurriyet, Yeni Duzen, Toplum Postasi, Kibris, Afrika and Parikiaki; and in anthologies including Hungry for You (ed. Joan Smith,1996) and Stepmother Tongue (ed. Mehmet Yashin, 2000). She has performed her poetry at a number of venues in London including the Hampstead Theatre, the Shaw Theatre, the Jazz Café, the British Museum and the Commonwealth Institute. She has appeared at poetry festivals in the UK, Cyprus and at the Cuirt Literary Festival in Galway, Ireland. Her work has also been broadcast on Radio 4 and Channel 4 in the UK. She is part of Poetz for Peace, a bi-communal, UN-funded Cypriot writers’ and musicians’ collective, and is featured on their forthcoming CD to be released later this year. Alev Adil reviews for The Times Literary Supplement, The Independent and The Financial Times, and lectures at the University of Greenwich where she is head of the Department of Creative, Critical and Communication Studies.