Description

By Fatma Durmush

ISBN: 978-1-84991-429-1
Published: 2011
Pages: 121
Key Themes: Theatre, Play, Fiction, Mental Health

Description

Fatma Durmush was born in 1959. Educated in both Cyprus and England but finished her education in England. Speaks both languages and is now studying psychology and preparing for her exhibition. She loves to read and go to galleries and listen to people talking. She has found that she loves being older as she is not afraid to be herself. Durmush has also found a passion for helping others which she was discouraged in her youth to do.

This book is made up of a mixture of styles but in a way it is a exploratory book. Durmush wrote it for a year the play took a year to do. The others were jailing for a time. Writing is a process of discovery and one discovers what experience one has and to retell that experience in an honest and interesting way is the challenge. Some people lie but there is lies in fiction however the better you are the less lies you tell, because it is the truth of the experience which you have which is the core. Experience and writing are dangerous animals that is like a trainer with a tiger. One leash too many and the tiger attacks that is the truth of writing one can’t be comfortable. Being truthful is not a comfort zone. Being oneself is the ultimate one is aiming for. How many people are writers? Or artists or anyone? What are we but the sum total of our memories and experiences! Without memories we are not people but there are false memories and of course no two people remember the same experience in the same way. The juxtapositioning of science and literature leads to a balance in her writing which is amazing for someone whose with a mental illness. How come a person a woman think such and see so much in a way that is amazing. However Durmush is modest to a fault, she can’t help observing she says. She loves observing people and how they react to her and she to them. Durmush loves to write about people study them and get work into her books. She can be wrong she says but she likes to explain human nature in a way that is satisfying to her.

Book Extract

Sounds of people coming and going. Coughing and fidgeting. It is as if the sounds come from the deep. Rustling of newspapers and cups and saucers, spoons turning in the cups and laughter as the men in the cafe drink their drinks. Sounds of toast being scraped as Mum burns another piece of toast. The toaster popping up as she places another slice of bread into the toaster, sullenly with bad feelings towards the toaster which has burnt the toast. Up and down the toaster goes, but the golden toast does not appear.

N: I am winding the clock, an old cheap clock which is useful.
So that people can tell the time. Time to eat, a time to think and a
time to be. Every one of us uses time, for without time we can’t have
order. Orderly existence isn’t on.
At the same time, here is old and rusted with a Cheap glory. I am
young, 22, and I am in the cafe doing the washing up. My life does
not add up, I am a glorious failure.