İlker Ortaç / Work
Cigara: short story
Cigara is part of İlker Ortaç’s online short-story archive. The short excerpt below is in the original Turkish; the full text opens on the story page.
A short excerpt in Turkish
cigara lise birden beri sigara içiyorum, asistanlığımın ikinci sene- sinden beri cigara. her gün aralıksız. bana ilk cigaramı içiren bir kadındı. akrep kadını. akrep kadını durmadan korkusuzluğuyla övünüp durur. o da korkusuzdu. gece nöbetçiydik, 8. bloğun üçüncü katında kadın doğumda şeker hastası bir gebe vardı, takiplerini kontrol etmeye gitmiştim, kaç cc idrar çıkartıyor bakmam gerekiyordu, sabah vizite hazır…From life to creative practice
İlker Ortaç entered public service in 1995 and spent years writing code. After fifteen years, he retired and chose novels, stories and screenplays. This transition locates the writing in his biography without treating fictional narrators’ experiences as events in the author’s life.
From making to presentation
- Source work: this record retains its own title and available publication information.
- Portfolio context: biography and the work’s form are read together without confusing fiction with biography.
- Access: the relevant link opens the reading, viewing or publication record for this work.
From the studio: a creative reconstruction
A first-person creative reconstruction drawing on the biography and artworks.
I imagine that coding asks me to locate an error, while writing sometimes asks me to stay inside it a little longer. I hear the sentence in my own voice first. Where it reads too comfortably, I stop and try unsettling that confidence in the words.
Working around Cigara: short story, my attention returns to this detail: Cigara is part of İlker Ortaç’s online short-story archive. The short excerpt below is in the original Turkish; the full text opens on the story page. In the next passage, I imagine pulling back anything that weakens that encounter and leaving the areas holding its tension open for longer.
In the final passage, I imagine returning the work to its own context. I leave room for reading a page, looking at a frame or watching the film beyond the narrative assembled here.