THE CITY of the Heart is a thought-provoking and beautiful book written by a man whose life has been as colourful, complex and contradictory as the contents of the book itself.
It is a collection of poems by the 14th century Turkish poet Yunus Emre, lovingly translated by Suha Faiz, a Turkish Cypriot, who despite his deep love for the island was forced by circumstance to spend many of his almost 80 years living in Britain.
I met Faiz, back in Cyprus to promote his new book, in the Buyuk Han, a restored Ottoman inn in northern Nicosia, for a three-hour conversation during which we talked about his book, his life, and Cyprus’ troublesome history.
There is an inextricable connection between Faiz’s life and the subject of his work – something he spells out in its introduction when he writes, “Fate has made me a man of two worlds”.
Faiz’s two worlds stem from the fact that he is a Turkish Cypriot, born in 1926, who before he was old enough to remember was taken by his father, along with his mother and brother, to live in Britain.
Being away from his homeland for much of his life is something that distanced him also from his Turkish language and culture, and it was partly through his attempts to rediscover and relearn his Turkish identity that he stumbled across the writings of Yunus Emre.
“I’ve learnt my mother tongue three times,” says Faiz, who, with his clear blue eyes, straw boater and crisp English accent, looks and sounds as much an Englishman as he does a Turk.
I cannot resist the temptation to ask Faiz whether he feels more like an Englishman or a Cypriot Turk, to which he replies, “I could write you a Times leader in English, but to do something like that in English I’d sweat like hell.”
Even so, his Turkish is impressively peppered with vocabulary that would lead many of his younger counterparts stumped.
His broad knowledge of Ottoman Turkish can be sourced to his early childhood. On returning to Cyprus at the age of five the Turkish was not quite the same as the language as it is today.
“At the time Turkish was still written in Arabic script. I remember that the money had the denominations written in English, Turkish and Greek, and the Turkish was in Arabic script,” he says.
At the age of eight, Faiz and his brother returned to Britain to attend boarding school – something that caused his Turkish “to evaporate”.
Later, after graduating from Oxford, he returned to live in Cyprus and began learning Turkish again.
“Again I had lost my mother tongue, but in six months I was comfortable in Turkish again. The Turkish we spoke was Ottoman Turkish, the language of the educated – a language that had evolved over 500 years.”
But it was only in 1976 that Faiz became familiar with Yunus Emre when he was given a book of his work by a Turk he met during a family holiday in Antalya.
Faiz, who translated the collection of Emre’s work bound together in The City of the Heart initially for the benefit of his wife and two sons, now believes he has inadvertently provided an opportunity for those who wish better to understand the Turkish psyche.
Written some 700 years ago, at a time when Islam was relatively new to the Turkish world, Emre’s poems encapsulate something of the culture and beliefs of the Turks who had merely 200 years before begun settling in Anatolia, Faiz says.
Such things may seem of little importance to those with only a passing interest in history and culture, but Faiz’s many years in Britain mean that he also knows well the Western psyche, and has therefore managed to present the poems in such a way they are comprehensible and relevant to the modern non-Turkish reader.
As he says in his introduction, “My endeavour in making this translation is to produce an English text which departs as little as possible from the sense, spirit and structure of the original Turkish: to achieve the practically impossible aim of enabling English reader to feel they are hearing the original author speaking to the across the years.”
Faiz’s belief is that the words of Emre offer something to believers of all faiths, and even to the non-believer. Perhaps the following words of Emre, translated by Faiz, give an indication of how Emre’s words can be of value to those of all faiths, or of no faith at all.
We need to serve a King Who never may be driven from His throne;
To rest within a place which we may never feel to be our own.
A bird we need to be, to fly, to reach the very rim of things
To drink that cordial whose drunkenness we may never disown.
We need to be a diving bird, to plunge into the waters’ flow;
We need a gemstone to recover such as jewellers cannot know.
To enter a garden, where to wander in contentment’s shade;
To pass summer as a rose – a rose whose petals never fade.
Mankind must lover be, must ever search to find the true Beloved;
Must burn within the flame of love – nor burn in any other flame.
Yunus, in stillness hold yourself, to Majesty now turn your gaze
And such a one from self bring forth as shall not come on earth again.
For me, the most profound thing Faiz described to me during our meeting was his explanation of the image printed on the cover of his book. At first glance the design appears to be a maze or a bird’s eye view of a city. It is, however, a phrase in Arabic meaning “He who knows himself knows his Lord”. I would hazard a guess that Faiz is a man who knows himself.
Even more intriguing perhaps are the lines:
Yunus who in early life found that peace may come through strife,
That even bloody sword and knife may lead man to humanity.
n If you wish to meet him and hear about his book, Faiz will be presenting it at the Mevlevi Museum at the Kyrenia Gate to the old city on Tuesday evening at 6pm.
Faiz’s book is published by the Near East Rumi Institute in Nicosia, which will be holding a number of events this week. For more information, please look in the What’s On section of Seven Magazine.
