She Threw the Rope & Pulled the Lake by Alina Asan & Anita Sezgener

“something is not afraid of something”

Alina thought and spoke. Anita listened and drew. And so this weave of Alina’s words and Anita’s drawings came together. That Alina was two at the time, and Anita her mother, is relevant. Equally relevant is the plane of parity on which their everyday companionship unfolds. She Threw the Rope & Pulled the Lake is what happens when an adult listens to a child closely and takes her musings, observations, and inquiries seriously.

The book begins along the angle of Alina’s vision, in relation to a home’s windowsills and the stacked streetscapes of Istanbul. Anita’s line, in the spirit of Franciszka Themerson and Harold and the Purple Crayon, then carries us across the page and over the arch of a day, encompassing moments of inspiration and parental energy dips, playground excursions, the quivering autonomy of bedtime, and the bond established through breastfeeding.

Anita Sezgener was born in Istanbul, in 1971. She is from a Sephardic Jewish family. Her poems, prose, essays, translations, and interviews have appeared in a range of journals and books. She is the translator, into Turkish, of Anne Carson’s Short Talks, Raymond Federman’s Voice in the Closet, and Jennifer Martenson’s Xq28¹, in editions from Nod Publishing House. She also makes archetypal drawings for books and book covers. Since 2008, she has edited and published the culture-art-literature zine Cin Ayşe, a visibility project for women. She is also one of the editors of Moero Fanzine, an online poetry zine. Since 2017, she has been Alina’s mom. Anita’s published books are as follows: Pusu Bilici [Ambush Finder] (Norgunk, 2008), Taşlık [Stony Place] (Yasakmeyve, 2011), Hafif Zehirler [Light Poison] (Pan, 2012), Normalia (Nod, 2014), Çok Sesi [Many Voiced] (Heterotopya, 2015), Tikkun Olam: Walter Benjamin Şiirleri [Tikkun Olam: Poems of Walter Benjamin] (Nod, 2017), Nabız Kayıt [Pulse Records] (Nod, 2020), and Aritmi Koridoru: Toplu Yazılar [Corridor of Arrhythmia: Collected Writings] (Everest Essay, September 2020).