"Silence girls" is a project initiated by Cathie Hubert from France and Viliyana Savova from Denmark in April 2021, to facilitate the translation and publication of Engin Akyürek's book Sessizlik into English. We have had permission from Tanil Yasar at Dogan Kitap , Engin Akyürek's publisher, to move on with our project and are very proud to add a stone to Engin Akyürek ever growing recognition.
February 2021 As we are all forced to stay inside, I decided to learn Turkish online with Ali Turek, a wonderful Turkish teacher in Paris. Not easy, as I just had covid and my brain is not back to normal yet ! Ali our teacher, has started a great initiative, to create bridges between the Turkish and French cultures, it is called Turquoises (1) and I have, with a few French friends " Les amis Français d'Engin Akyürek", written a whole file about Engin and how I would like his book to be translated into French. In my Turkish course I have met Viliyana Savova. She speaks 7 languages and is a very bright and kind woman. We share our love for books and our great interest for the work of Engin Akyürek as an actor and writer.
March 2021 Today we are still happily learning and aim to go to Istanbul after the pandemic.
Villiyana and I became close friends, practising Turkish together, meeting online to talk about Engin, Istanbul, Turkish films, Rumi, books and all sorts! After the class, I spoke to her about my dream of a French version of Sessizlik and she said she wanted an English version. So we thought it would be good to join forces and decided to make it happen in English first! I will do it in French later, when I have more experience, this is a learning curve! We are both professionnal women and book lovers, but none of us is familiar with the publishing world . Where to start? The translator of course!
April 2021 We have been doing an intensive search for a good literary Turkish to English translator, going through a lot of interviews online and having long discussions with several of them. We have found the one! Feyza Howell, to our good fortune, has accepted to do the translation, after we sent her a copy of the book. She read it and loved it. She is a Turkish translator, working and living in UK, who has translated multiple editions books. We are very happy she loves Sessizlik. In one of our video conversations, when we got to know each other, she called us " The Silence girls" ! We thought it was fun and made it our project title, together with a Rumi phrase that I love " Listen to Silence, it has so much to say " So well in tune with Engin's book!
June 2021 Whilst discussing with Fey, we are learning a lot about the mecanisms of the publishing world! Fey is so much in demand, she can only start the translation in April 2022.
July 2021 We have had the idea to start a fundraising in Autumn, to pay for the translation work and have now realised it is time to contact Dogan Kitap, Engin's Turkish publisher and get permission from them to go on, as advised by Fey. We have tried to get in touch with some people at Art Istanbul and Dogan Kitap, without success. Summer is not the best time, so we will try again in September. In the meantime we go on searching for potential publishers in UK. This is also a long process. We are writing letters, working on our fundraising texts and learning a lot as we go along.
August 2021 We have decided to have a break until September. It is high season for me, I need to work in my art gallery all summer, enjoy time with my beautiful artist daughter and be in my art studio ! Yana is going to Istanbul with her family.
15th of September 2021 We are looking at good fundraising companies ! As we are in different countries it is not simple. We will have to do it from one of our countries. We go on searching for and selecting some potential publishers for Sessizlik. We have opened a Silence girls Instagram account, facebook and twitter account, which we will both work on each week. We are sure everyone understanding English will wish to have that book. Reading a beautiful interpretation of Sessizlik is a gift we are all waiting for .
October 2021 Navid Shazhad, a professor and writer from Pakistan, stepped in to help fine tune the English documents we need to send to the publishers. It also warmed our heart to see that other people support our venture. Mahta Hossein from Iran, Barisea Basili from Bulgaria, Rita Erdösi from Hungary, Greta Holerca from Canada, to name a few. And, Zafer Yilmaz our friend media researcher in Ankara University, who has done a big university survey about Engin popularity last year, is also helping.
How lovely to see everyone enthusiastic about the book in English! We have now started to do a survey online, to see how many people would want the book translated , so we can show future publishers. Numbers are growing by the day! People love the idea!
We are preparing all the texts, images, videos for the fundraising site. November 2021 Viliyana has finally found Tanil Yasar ( Dogan kitap publisher) right email, our letters had gone to the wrong emails or had been lost.
November 2021 We are over the moon! Within a day, Tanil Yasar, Engin's publisher at Dogan Kitap, has kindly replied offering his help, giving us permission to go on! He sent us some marketing material about Engin's book for the Foreign publishers to look at ! Now we can finally proceed with the fundraiser. Fantastic turning point! We are sharing the news with all our friends!
December 2021 We are working on the documents needed to send to the foreign publishers in January, making videos and marketing documents for the project. Endless conversations between us and a sense of excitement, that we can finally make this happen. Our friend Ali has accepted to read a text from Sessizlik in Turkish and it is wonderful, such a beautiful language, I wish Engin would record his own unique voice and do an audio book in Turkish! It is almost Christmas and we have just launched our Go Fund Me fundraiser. It has already raised money! And, big surprise, a publisher Viliyana has written to in Denmark, and who works within the same International organization as DK, is seriously interested in publishing an e-book of Sessizlik! Even an audio book. We need a paper book, but both could be done! We have written to Tanil Yasar with the news. For now we are having a break and hoping for a fabulous new year.
10 January 2022 We have recorded the voice of my dear friend Claire Wilkinson, an English actress and voice actress in London. Hearing Engin's text spoken in her most subtle, poetic voice is a delight. It is also very moving to hear what he writes. It touches my soul as much as his acting. We spend our time networking on social media to promote the fundraiser and have raised more than a third of the money already! Good start! Fey has confirmed she will start in April, and we are adding publishers to our list ! After much discussions and lots of conversations, we have finally agreed on all the documents that we will send to the publishers. In three months, the translation starts, it leaves us one term, to find our much desired publisher ! And when we have succeded, all will be in the hands of Dogan Kitap and the Foreign publisher, we will have done our job ! Inshallah! More in my diary soon....
18 of January 2022 I am back in my art studio again but we work on the book project every evening after work. Our first Step the fundraiser : we have raised more than half of the amount needed to pay for the translator already! Whilst we are waiting for this to be completed, we are now actively sending our complete file about Engin's book, to carefully selected English speaking publishers. Those who publish " In translation" writers. We have learnt something else again! It takes a minimum of 3 months for publishers to read anyone's submission file, as they also have a waiting list to be considered! But we take heart as at least, they are answering us to say they will read it! We have 20 publishers on our list so far and go on searching, waiting for the one!
19 February 2022
We have successfully raised via our Go fund me fundraiser, the whole amount to pay for the literary translator Feyza Howell. As people are going on donating, all excess of money will go to Engin Akyürek chosen charities. 60 generous people have contributed to make this dream come true and we thank them with our heart. First step done! Fey, as planned, will start the translation in April, to be completed in June. She is a well-known translator and in demand . We had booked her services last summer! This is such a long process, both of us are professionals, used to create and complete tasks swiftly, however this sort of job is a long term enterprise! Author's rights, permissions, many admin hurdles, and learning how it works, not to mention communicating in several languages. As for publishers, for most of them it takes 2 to 3 months minimum, from the time they receive samples of the book and the time they read it !
But we are convinced we will make it in due time! A gift from two book lovers to our much loved Engin. Now back to our publishers 's list.
21 April 2022
Our dear Feyza Howell has started translating Engin Short stories and after reading the first two, we are overwhelmed with joy and love, as being Turkish, she has understood the poetry of Engin's writing and translated it into beautiful English. The Translation will be completed in July,not long to wait!
After sending many files to several publishers in UK, Denmark, Dubai and everyhwere, we are happy to say we have found a great publisher in the UK ! When we have finalised our discussions with them, we will put them in touch with DK . So more news beginning of June.
June 2022
After many ups and downs, changes, new hopes and a year after we began, the translation of Sessizlik is on its way and the UK publisher is found! News very soon !
October 2022
The publisher we have found and who is ready to publish is now negotiating the Foreign rights of the book The Uk and rest of the world rights except the US and Canada ( who are already bought) with EA Turkish publisher and agent. Fingers crossed all will finally be agreed.
12/10/22 We have heard today from our publisher that the book publishing into English has been approved by Engin Akyürek publisher Doğan Kitap! Great News ! More to come !
December 2022 The publisher we have found is Kismet Publishing run by Ramona Harper a London based publisher. We introduced them to Doğan Kitap, their team and Engin gave the green light to Kismet. Kismet purchased the book's rights for UK and other English speaking countries except North America ( rights had already been bought years ago and not to our knowledge) . The pre orders for " Silence" book are going to be announced by the end of December. We have finally reached our goal are so happy it is happening.
The silence Girls will have a limited edition of first prints copies available for pre orders from the 1st of January 2023. Please email cathiehubertfr@gmail.com and vsavova07@gmail.com to pre order.
April 2023 Viliyana went to Istanbul and meet DK team who tanked us for our hard work.
May 2023 Kismet publisher has now released the limited edition of SILENCE in English , a high quality translation , a beautifuly produced book with all the original illustrations chosen by Engin. The book is now available to order to people all over the world. We are waiting for the signing with Engin to happen and are very keen to finally meet him in person and thank him for his words.