Tilbe Akan

What was your favorite book as a child?

The Little Black Fish by Samed Behrengi. It made me believe that there could be another world, that even the smallest voice could make waves through silence. Its pages showed me that imagination, combined with the quiet bravery of a child, could shatter open the walls of what is said to be unchangeable. It seeded the belief that dreaming was a kind of resistance.

What was the original reason or motivation why you started writing creatively?

I started writing to endure the brutality that tightened around me. The world was hard, unforgiving, and words became my refuge. Every sentence rounded out the rough edges of pain, formed chaos into something I could manage. Writing provided a sort of freedom, a tenuous control when all else seemed out of my grasp.

What was the most adventurous or thrilling thing you ever did/experienced?

I was 19 when I was a reporter along the Syrian border. I was on the cusp of war, its silence, its smoke, its unsayable weight. I would not say it was an adventure, but it was a crossing. Something inside me broke there. The world seemed infinitely breakable, yet I had never felt more alive in it.

Do you listen to music while reading or writing?

No, I don't. Music passes through me too fast; it excites emotions, knots ideas, and rearranges the words before they’re ripe. When I’m reading or writing, I require silence that allows my own voice to surface, unbroken, from within.