A Turkish literary institution turns 90: reflections on Varlık’s evolution and achievements, as well as notable omissions
Only ten years younger than the Republic of Turkey itself, Varlık devotes its July issue to an accounting of the journal’s first 90 years. In its early days Varlık marched in step with the modernising spirit of the new order under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, but today the editorial stance sets itself at a distance from the conservative administration of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. But what emerges is a portrait of a nation where freedom to publish has always been precarious. It’s also a warts-and-all account of Varlık’s achievements, as well as the artists and artistic moments that it missed.
Ayşe Sarısayın goes through the archive of her father, the poet Behçet Necatigil, to show how the artist’s career was shaped and encouraged though his lifelong friendship with Varlık’s first editor Yaşar Nabi Nayır, ‘a complete Istanbul gentleman with thin wire glasses, measured movements and polite speech’. And poet, novelist and columnist Feyza Hepçilingirler recalls her experience of first publication in the magazine in the 1970s and the role Varlık has played in launching generations of new writers through awards named after the first editor…
After the truth-shower 