Hello,

I’m a literature scholar by profession with a PhD in English and American Studies from the University of Manchester. I like to joke about being the academic grandchild of Raymond Williams as I was trained in Marxist criticism under the supervision of Terry Eagleton. However, currently, I am primarily working on the intersections between literature and psychiatry.

I’m very much your everyday literature-person who always prefers the books over the movies and enjoys Terry Pratchett as much as William Shakespeare. However, my heart is with fin-de-siecle arts and writing from around the world and I’m dubbed  a “romantic” and a “modernist” by my friends; yes, contradiction becomes me. I translate literature; some from English to Turkish and some from Turkish to English. I have plans to do more of the latter.

I’m very fond of arts in general and theatre and paintings in particular. However, I’m also known to have random interests that I have accumulated over the years, as one colleague once called it, like a “magpie’s nest,” from Dungeons and Dragons to capoeira, from skin-to-skin drums to collecting stamps. I’m a proud globetrotter who have visited many places and who can walk miles (and I tend to walk fast). Though I travel light, I’m no backpacker. I take nice photos with my D-SLR, but in truth, the camera does the actual job. I just enjoy looking at them afterwards; to remember, to think, to write. I sketch things in words and in lines. I’m not good at either of them, but I would really like to learn to draw better.

This is my blog on arts, books, travels, and other misc. topics. Unfortunately, it’s all in Turkish for the time being. Still if you hit the label “English” on the labels-cloud a post or two might show (possibly translations of Turkish literature).

For my writing in English, which comprises of articles and book reviews, please see my Researchgate page: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Burcu_Alkan4