A Turkish Vignette

My friend Ö. is a tiny little man: perfect little hands, perfect feet, perfectly dressed. His hair is light brown, he is clean-shaven. In my opinion, he was also a wonderful translator of Turkish poetry into English, a brilliant, thoughtful man, eloquent about “modernism,” “desire,” and other things that literary people use to discuss the books they like. In Istanbul, we would sit up late and hold long conversations about writing, life, literature, music, art…. Oh, we talked! (more…)