"The tales in this book, I heard from my mother. My mother heard them from a storyteller nearly sixty years ago. It seems my grandfather never thought twice about hiring a storyteller to warm the cockles of his little girl’s heart. She listened to many stories, though she couldn't always recall them, she passed many along to me, as well, though I couldn’t recall them all either, TO tell the truth, I had long since forgotten even the stories in this book. Years later, I returned to my father's house in Antep and my mother just so, happened to tell them again to me. I was captivated by the beauty of the stories laid before me. TO her credit, my mother was a superb storyteller, but it wasn’t just my mother's eloquence that affected me. The secret to the beauty of these stories lays hidden in their striking literary form and the profound messages in their content. The basic nature of humankind so matter-offactiy unfolded in front of one's eyes, it was impossible not to admire these narratives.
Hearing the stories again, it dawned on me that it was imperative they be written down. I was pushed to this conclusion by the fear that in this contemporary World, where we are domineered by visual narration, these tales which rely on the spoken word will one day be lost. So I set about putting them on paper, fine-tuning and embellishing in places to be sure, but without tampering with the essence of the stories.
I suppose the same adventure has befallen these tales as all other oral retellings. Each storyteller and listener in turn enhances the story, or impairs it for that matter, by adding a little of themselves. With that, I feel compelled to remark on the great enthusiasm with which I set to writing down these stories, enriched by the dream world of my mother. Who is such an extraordinary storyteller."
Ahmet Ümit na introdução deste livro mas também aqui.
com as ilustrações de Oğuz Demir. o site, aqui.
"Once upon a time, there was and there was not", um artigo no Today's Zaman sobre este livro. parte inicial engraçada: "Everyone loves a good story. Whether it be old men sitting in a café, young men around a camp fire or children snuggling down in bed at night, the fascination of a tale that draws the listener in and sets their imagination alight cannot be beaten." a piada é que o 'everyone' não inclui a metade da população que é feminina. muito injusto, até porque as histórias do livro foram contadas por um pai a uma filha e por essa filha ao seu filho. detalhes, até porque o autor do artigo continua numa linha de as minhas histórias são melhores do que as tuas. seja como for, um excelente livro, apesar de artigos estranhos nos jornais.
as far as I am concerned, I am drawn to the Persian style storytelling of the never ending tale, one that begins in the middle of the previous one in a continuous procession of stories never ended, never disclosed. in this book there is disclosure and mysteries are solved (isn't that Ümit's main job, after all?). a beautiful book to add to all those story-books that, such as this one, are transcripts of an oral practice carried out through time. I could think of Homer and of Black Elk Speaks. on the other hand, the idea of author needs to be looked at from a different perspective: the writer as medium and not as creator. more and more I see the idea of author, the lone god in his ivory tower, as a creation of western literature, the individual as such being a western concept.
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