Interview with Buğra Giritlioğlu 
By Ege Altan

1- obiçim yayınlar is one of the few publishing houses in Turkey that openly identifies itself as queer. How did this journey begin? How do you understand the relationship between publishing and queer community-building today? Finally, would you say that queer publishing, for you, also functions as a form of cultural or political activism?

obiçim yayınlar was born out of necessity—the need to publish my third (and so far, final) poetry collection. In retrospect, I’m grateful to all the publishing houses that rejected my work, as they inadvertently spurred me to start my own. Once I made that decision, it was inevitable that I would promote the work of those I’ve always considered my closest natural allies: women and queer folks. Funding and time constraints have so far limited my output (13 books in the four years since its founding), but I hope to expand the catalogue to include translations of both literature and nonfiction, as well as topics that might seem unrelated, like biology, ornithology, ecology, musicology. In the long term, I aspire to see obiçim grow beyond books solely by or about queer people. That said, feminist and queer works are likely to remain my primary focus for the immediate future.

I definitely think that queer publishing functions as a form of cultural and political activism today. Yet I also imagine and hope for a future (probably not in our lifetimes) in which we’re so fully accepted and integrated into society that activism is no longer necessary. Queer community building, on the other hand, will likely always be needed, so long as we don’t have foolproof ways of recognizing each other on sight. Queer folks in Turkey, as in many other parts of the world, often struggle to find and connect with one another. We need more genuine alternatives to dating apps, and queer publishing is certainly one of them.

2- Could you talk a little about how Hepimiz Kuiriz, Hepimiz Işık came together? What did the curatorial process look like? How were the contributors selected or invited, and what kinds of conversations shaped the final form of the anthology?

Hepimiz Kuiriz, Hepimiz Işık brings together 15 writers and a caricaturist. The contributors are a mix of queer writers I’ve met over the years and respect, as well as heterosexual writers I knew who either already had a queer-themed work or whom I felt could craft a compelling queer story. Four of the authors came through recommendations from others. Most of the pieces were written specifically for the anthology, though there were exceptions—for instance, one writer-friend reworked an existing story, transforming the protagonist from a heterosexual woman into a gay man.

3- In Çapkın Gezgin’in Ukdeler Kitabı (2023), the narrator’s voice often feels confessional, at times gossiping, at other times sincerely pouring his heart out. What drew you to narrating the character’s heartaches in such an intimate register? Do you see these shared vulnerabilities perhaps as a practice of building a counter-archive of desire?

My heartaches are often as intense as my attractions, which tend to be strong and varied—I sometimes wonder if my repertoire of types isn’t wider than most. Sharing the torment has a softening effect: as the saying goes, joy multiplies when shared, sorrow diminishes. I’m naturally a confessional person, and I believe that admitting one’s weaknesses can be empowering, even a way of building solidarity. I also thrive on self-deprecating humor; confession and sarcasm can be addictive—the more you do it, the more you want to. If by “counter-archive of desire” you mean a body of stories shaped more by unrequited longing than by fulfilled desire, then yes—that’s exactly what I’ve built, since that has often been my experience. But even in the episodes where I complain or dramatize, there’s always a strong undercurrent of passion and attraction flowing through.

4- The recently published anthology The Pulse of Contemporary Turkish: Poems from the New Millennium (Syracuse University Press, 2025) is such an exciting and much-needed project. It fills a longstanding lacuna in Turkish-Anglophone scholarship by bringing contemporary Turkish poetry into wider circulation. Could you talk a bit about the translation process? What were some of the guiding principles, challenges, or surprises that emerged while working across languages and poetic forms?

Many thanks for your compliments. There were several recurring challenges throughout the translation process. One was wordplay—things like truncated or merged words, puns, or clever shifts in language that are often untranslatable. Another had to do with sound-based techniques,

 such as alliteration and assonance, which are difficult to reproduce in another language without distorting the meaning. Enjambment posed yet another challenge, especially when it created ambiguity or double meanings that were hard to carry over into English. There were also challenges specific to Turkish. As a null-subject language with a flexible subject-object-verb (SOV) word order, Turkish allows for a kind of vagueness or fluidity that English doesn’t easily accommodate. I discuss these and other grammatical features in a footnote in my preface (on page xxxi), since they shape so many of the decisions we had to make in translation.

I was the one who selected the poems for the anthology, though, in several cases, Daniel Scher, my friend and co-editor/translator, helped narrow down the translations we ultimately included. Our collaboration worked well because we each brought complementary strengths to the table: I’m a native Turkish speaker, and Daniel’s a native English speaker with a deep sensitivity to tone, idiom, and nuance. But beyond language, Daniel also brought valuable cultural insight. For example, he would flag moments where a phrase might unintentionally echo a well-known film or book title—things I might have missed. That kind of attention helped us avoid missteps and kept the translations feeling fresh and intentional.

5- In the preface, you write that poetry is “closely linked to survival” (xxx). Could you expand on what you mean by this? How does this relationship between poetry and survival resonate within Turkish poetic traditions, or perhaps take on urgency in the contemporary moment?

I was referring there to our urgent need, as highly social animals, to find like-minded companions in life, whether for love or friendship. Good poets also tend to be good readers of poetry, so it’s no surprise that many of them find companionship and solace in fellow poets and their work. Poetry is no more closely linked to survival for poets than architecture is for architects. Deep down, we all seek and strive both to impress others and to realize ourselves. Anything pursued with passion is “closely linked to survival.”

6- Are there any future projects you’re excited to work on?

Daniel and I are translating my novel, Çapkın Gezgin’in Ukdeler Kitabı, into English under the working title Misadventures of a Crush Collector. We don’t have a publisher or literary agent yet, but hopefully that will come. I’m also curating pieces for our next anthology—a short story collection, this time possibly focusing on Turkey’s women and queer authors. Alongside this, I’m exploring translation residencies in Europe and beyond where I can dedicate time to these projects.