KAFASINA GORE STORIES
In April 2015, Engin surprised us by publishing a story he had written in the newly established literary magazine Kafasına Göre, whose editors are his friends from Ankara, İdil Hafizoğlu and Yasin Öksüz. That's how we learned that in addition to acting, his hobby is also writing.
The story goes like this:
On April 2, 2015, Engin's biggest fan club on FB, Engin Akyurek Universal Fans Club, made a post with a photo and information from Artistanbul: “Engin Akyurek wrote for the magazine Kafasina Gore, which will appear in April.” They gave this news presumably following a post of March 29 on the IG account of the magazine, which wrote about the fact that the first issue would feature Engin, among others. You can imagine how much euphoria and speculation this news caused!
At that time we didn't yet know that Engin was writing short stories, and that he would be sharing them with his fan-readers. Nor did anyone anticipate that Engin would publish in each issue. Engin himself, moreover, did not plan to do so at the time either, as he said in one of the interviews. Fans speculated that Engin was one of the founders/owners of the magazine, which Engin denied when asked about it.
The first issue of the magazine was published on April 5, 2015, and featured Engin's first story [Becoming a Dream, I Followed My Dreams/Dreams]. The story was translated by fans into 17 languages, including Polish. [see here]
The magazine's Instagram account posted several photos with the story, and chose the last sentence as the quote for the post. Maybe I should ask my friends, “Did you go for something sweet* last night?”
[*The original mentions Turkish dessert muhallebi (a cooked milky dessert, a kind of pudding, usually with mastic or rose water)].
On April 11, Engin's friend Ahmet Tansu Tasanlar posted a photo with Engin and the cover of the first issue of Kafasina Gore. Ahmet, by the way, probably has the most photos with Kafasina, followed by Burak Tamdogan, who has written to Kafa several times.
It is also worth mentioning that Engin's third short story, Bi Tebessum Halinde [Like a Smile], was published in one of Turkey's most widely read newspapers, Hurriyet.
In an interview, Engin said that he had been writing for a long time, since his university days. Some of the stories published in Kafasına Göre are stories written in those days. Some, however, are completely new.
I've been writing since my university days, it was a good period for me and that reflected in what I write about. Most are pulled out of old closets and shaken off the dust. Even in the first issue there is a story I wrote when I was 21. Then I started writing new stories. I realized that what I wrote once had not changed (not become obsolete). I wrote when I was 21 and I still write in the same way. [Interview with Sonat Bahar, 2017].
Engin not only wrote stories for each issue of the magazine, but also interviewed his friend from the Artistanbul agency, Tolga Sarıtaş, about his film “Kötü Çocuk.” Issue 19 also features an interview with him himself regarding his film “Cocuklar Sana Emanet”. In issue 23, on the other hand, we can read an interview with him about his first book “Sessizlik,” conducted by another Artistanbul colleague, Genco Özak. As we know, some of these stories [19 to be exact] were included in a collection titled Sessizlik (Silence). [There will be more info on SESSIZLIK soon]. We encourage you to read this interview, as Engin gives many interesting details about his stories there.
Nineteen more stories appeared in Engin's second book: Zamansiz [Timeless]
Although we often try to find some biographical features in his stories, memories of his life, Engin himself said that these are fictional stories:
...what I write is fiction, it is not related to my life. It is not literally my childhood. There is a little bit of me in it, a little bit of observation, a little bit about Ankara, a little bit of the 1990s, a little bit of dreams and a little bit of expectations. [Interview with Sonat Bahar, 2017].
Still, in the interview with Genco Özak, Engin says which ones are based on authentic stories.
In the same interview with Sonat Bahar [2017], Engin explains where the idea for the magazine came from:
I have been following magazines and journals in Turkey very closely for 20 years. You can find literature, humor in them, but there was a lack of real life stories. I have a good friend in Ankara, Yasin Oksuz, with whom we often talked about publishing a magazine, but we couldn't find the time to do it, until one day our plans became a reality. We decided to publish columns for different age groups in Kafasina Gore. 12 issues [EAPF - that's how many there were by the time of the interview] from people with different professions, about their observations or what they had read.
It is worth mentioning that many of Engin's friends from the acting world [including Burak Tamdoğan] and beyond [e.g., composer Toygar Isikli] have published in Kafasına Göre. The magazine also featured trailers for Engin's projects e.g. Sefirin Kizi, Bir Ask Iki Hayat, Cocuklar Sana Emanet , Olene Kadar and Engin's book promotion [Here].
Finally, another interesting fact about the Engin icons appearing with each story - they changed a bit, but from the very beginning they were based on a photo from Engin's interview in L'Officiel Hommes (2015).
