The novel features a serial killer who is also an RC Alumnus.

Journalist, economist, and prolific author Cüneyt Ülsever’s latest book Ben Bir Seri Katilim ( I am a Serial Killer, Kırmızı Kedi Yayınları) is a thriller featuring a striking character: a serial killer who is both a mathematical genius and an RC alumnus. When RCQ asked Ülsever why he chose to make the character a graduate of his own alma mater, he jokingly replied, “I chose RC because I know it thoroughly.”

Ülsever developed a love of reading and theater at an early age thanks to his highly encouraging mother. He wrote his first story in third grade 3. However, he chose to study economics, even though he says he would have preferred to study comparative literature.

Ülsever’s favorite writers are Yaşar Kemal, Yahya Kemal Beyatlı, and Nazım Hikmet: “I believe Yahya Kemal and Nazım Hikmet are the true masters of the Turkish language. I am in awe of the way they command words.”

Ülsever believes there is no formula for becoming a writer and that the first requirement is simply to want it. For members of the RC community who aspire to write, he recommends reading extensively and writing regularly: “It is important to develop discipline and to write every day.”

Reflecting on his student years, Ülsever remembers his elective literature class with Mrs. Wilson fondly: “I learned a great deal from her. She often hosted the entire class in her garden and encouraged us to debate ideas. We were taught not to memorize information, but to question it constantly, and to understand that everything can be debated.”

Vassaf offers a novel approach to uncertainty.

Psychologist and writer Gündüz Vassaf has released a new book: Günlük Yaşam Felsefesi: Şimdiye Övgü (Philosophy of Daily Life: In Praise of the Present, Tuhaf Yayınları). The work is a book-length interview conducted by Duru Uslu over the course of a year.

In this new volume, Vassaf continues his signature critique of “normalized” ways of living. Elaborating on the book’s themes in a recent  Hürriyet  interview with Uygar Taylan, Vassaf encourages readers to embrace the unpredictable: “Following World War II, humanity began living in a strictly ordered manner. Today, however, those traditional senses of belonging no longer work. Some populists still promote the nationstate model of 200 years ago, but uncertainty is the fundamental rule of nature. Life is inherently uncertain. Instead of trying to impose order onto the unknown, we need to learn to enjoy the uncertainty.”

 

The publications offer a rich history of the institutions shaping contemporary art in Türkiye.

Vasıf Kortun is a defining figure in the contemporary Turkish art world. Among his many achievements are his roles as the founding director and curator of pivotal cultural institutions, including the Istanbul Contemporary Art Project, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, and Salt. Nerden Geldik Buraya: Vasıf Kortun’u Okumak (How Did We Get Here: Reading Vasıf Kortun) were published by Salt/Garanti Kültür A.Ş. and Robinson Crusoe 389 and Salt/Garanti Kültür A.Ş. and Archive Books. They are built around an extensive interview conducted by Sezin Romi, Salt’s Senior Librarian and Archivist between August 2024 and July 2025. The books serve as both a documentation of institutional history and a multi-layered exploration of Türkiye’s cultural milieu. Expanding upon Kortun’s 2017 talk, “Questions on Institutions”—delivered as his tenure at Salt came to a close—the publication opens up a vital discussion on the past, present, and future of art spaces. Known for challenging traditional museum norms, creating space for experimental practices, advocating for decolonial perspectives, and championing collaborative, lateral work methods, Kortun’s lifelong dedication to the arts receives a timely deep dive in these pages.

More details on the books are available at saltonline.org

Hükümenoğlu plans to complete the series into a trilogy.

Hikmet Hükümenoğlu published Sonra Gözler Görür (And Then The Eyes See, İthaki Yayınları) in 2024, and it is now turning into a Netflix series. Fresh on the heels of this success, he published the followup novel Bu Dünyada Yaşamak (Living in This World, İthaki Yayınları) with the same cast of characters.

Hükümenoğlu says that he was drawn to crime fiction because it allows him to explore the darker side of human psychology in a compact and entertaining form: “The genre also creates space to examine the political and social history of the country naturally through the story, without becoming preachy or didactic.” Hükümenoğlu is also an avid crime fiction reader: “Tana French is probably my favorite contemporary crime writer because of the psychological depth in her novels.” The roots of this habit can be traced to his RC years: “The RC library had a treasure trove of Agatha Christie books, and discovering the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series there was a huge breakthrough for me as a young reader because it made reading feel interactive and exciting.”

For the fans of this series, there is good news. Hükümenoğlu plans to complete a trilogy: “I plan for it to become a trilogy, although I’m not sure yet when I’ll return to it. Right now I’m also working on other projects, but I definitely see more stories in this world and with these characters.”

 

Haldun Dormen RC 49 was one of the earliest supporters of Nedim Saban RC 86.

TiyatroKare founded by Nedim Saban RC 86 won the inaugural Haldun Dormen Award in the 27th Yapı Kredi Afife Theater Awards. Established this year to honor the late doyen of Turkish theater, Haldun Dormen RC 49, the award was presented to Tiyatrokare for its staging of D.L. Coburn’s Konken Partisi  (The Gin Game). Saban interpreted the play through the lens of post-COVID loneliness, particularly among the aging population, while injecting a sense of hope: “The play takes place in a nursing home. In the 1980s, such institutions were seen as places of abandonment. I wanted to take a different approach and show them as a positive aspect of modern life. I take my theater students to these homes on World Theater Day to visit former artists. Especially after COVID, the management told us these visits were more effective than medicine.”

Saban and his theater company have received numerous awards over the years, but this one, given in Dormen’s name for the best comedy of the year, has a particularly significant place in Saban’s heart: “After I graduated from NYU, Haldun Abi invited me over. He wanted to try new things, so I proposed an angry play by Joe Orton about sexual liberation. It became an instant success but also drew major backlash. Haldun Abi, known for saying “you can do it, darling,” this time said “you couldn’t do it darling.” However, he continued to support me when I founded Tiyatrokare. I always sought his advice on scripts, asking if a play would be a hit. He would laugh and say, ‘If I knew that, I’d be a billionaire.’ I always looked up to him, not only for his successes but also because of his ability to laugh off his failures. Very few people Türkiye can self-criticize like that. His courage, intelligence and realism have always been my roadmap. This award propels me to continue my 34-year-long journey with Tiyatrokare. I am also intimidated a little by the prospect of doing better, but even if I don’t, I have learned to laugh it off. Which is as important as the award itself.

 

 

From theater to poetry, the book casts a wide net.

Cevat Çapan’s Öğrenme Uğraşı (The Pursuit of Learning, Yapı Kredi Yayınları) reflects his vast knowledge and eclectic interests, the collection brings together Çapan’s previously published essays, impromptu speeches put to paper, and prefaces to various books and anthologies. The subject matter is vibrant and wide-ranging, spanning from Homeros to novelist A.S.Byatt, from theater to cinema, and music to poetry.

During his years at RC and beyond, Çapan has surveyed both British/ American and Turkish literature over the ages, and his passion for poetry and his ever-deepening knowledge have consistently fueled his own poetry. Çapan has also meticulously translated the works of numerous foreign poets’ and introduced them to Turkish readers.

Çapan traces his interest in poetry to RC: “I was introduced to poems by William Wordsworth, Robert Browning, and Edgar Allan Poe at RC and, by graduation, was familiar with almost all the great poets of world literature.” Indeed, some of his earliest works were published in the school review İzlerimiz as well as prominent literary reviews like Varlık, and Yeditepe.”

In March 2026, Ayşe Dedeoğlu Arkalı won the Children’s and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Editing for an Animated Program at the 2026 Children’s & Family Creative Arts Emmy Awards. She received the honor for her work as an editor on the Disney+/Pixar series Win or Lose, specifically for the episode “Mixed Signals.”

Reflecting on the achievement, Arkalı said: “I’m so honored to have won an Emmy. This show was made by an extraordinary group of people who truly showed up for one another—just like the Pickles team in the story.”

“The time I spent in the RC library taught me 70% of what I know about literature.”

Prolific author Cem Akaş has a new novel out: Sözcüklerin Anlamı (The Meaning of Words, Can Yayınları). His latest work has garnered significant attention for its use of “interrupted realism,” a narrative technique that deliberately breaks the reader’s immersion in the story to highlight the distinction between objective truth and narrative constructs.

 Akaş explains the draw of this method for him: “Every moment we live is punctured by what we hear, watch, and read in the media feed, and this has become our new ontology—this is how we live now. How can this condition of interruption be translated into the structure of a novel? Sözcüklerin Anlamı offers one possible answer to that question.”

Akaş views this novel as a shift in scale compared to his previous work: : “To put it in musical terms: the Olgunluk Çağı Üçlemesi (Age of Maturity Trilogy, Can Yayınları) 19 (19, Can Yayınları), and Y (Y, Can Yayınları) were my symphonies; Ofelya (Ophelia, Kafka Yayınevi) was a ballet; Zamanın En Kısa Hali (The Shortest State of Time, Can Yayınları) and Sözcüklerin Anlamı are chamber music pieces, each a quartet. “

Akaş remembers his time at RC fondly: “I had excellent teachers like John Heaney who encouraged me to write creatively; English classes taught me how to read a text and find things in it, which, by inference, taught me how to put things into texts. I never studied literature formally, but the time I spent in the RC library taught me 70% of what I know about literature.”

Cem Akaş is also known for writing Bir Geleceğin Anatomisi and Tepedeki Okul, as well as curating the RC’s 160th anniversary exhibition, both of which further deepened Akaş’s connection to RC: “I was enthralled with the history of the school, and the month I spent in New York, researching the RC archive at Columbia University, remains one of my favorite months in life.”

“We are now facing another kind of pandemic: loneliness.”

Through her experience as a consultant and trainer in various sectors, Nil Madi realized that many of the challenges people face at work are rarely spoken about openly, creating tensions, unanswered questions and emotional loads. This realization led her to pen a book: İşin Psikolojisi (Psychology of Work, Hayat Yayınları): “Writing this book was my way of saying ‘you’re not alone and you can navigate work life with awareness, without losing yourself along the way.’”

Madi observes seismic changes in work-related psychology after the pandemic: “Well-being and psychological safety are no longer secondary topics; they have become central.”However, she notes that new pressures have emerged: “Work processes have accelerated dramatically. With constant change and the rapid integration of AI, everything feels faster, but as speed increases, patience decreases, both for employees and managers.”

Madi also identifies a new crisis: “We are now facing another kind of pandemic: loneliness. Despite being more connected digitally, people are feeling increasingly isolated in working life, and this sense of loneliness is becoming a silent but serious issue in organizations.”

Madi has recommendations to RC students on the cusp of entering the work force:
“Invest in getting to know yourselves. Self-awareness is the most critical foundation. Discover your values, your curiosities, your relationship with stress, and be clear about what you do not want. See every role you take on as a chapter and an experience rather than a destination. Focus on what you learn and how you learn it. Learn and really master how to stay calm. And throughout this journey, don’t forget that curiosity and self-compassion will take you much further than pressure ever will.”

Madi credits RC with shaping her analytical framework: “RC gave me the freedom and the confidence to look at the world from different perspectives and create my own synthesis. It helped me recognize not only what I want, but more importantly, what I do not want. All my teachers were deeply influential in their own ways. However, Gökçen Başkan holds a very special place in my heart. The perspective I gained from her class left a lasting mark on me and sparked my interest in art history. I feel deep gratitude and respect for her.”

“My RC foundation helped me develop further respect for my ancestors.”

Nigar Nigar Alemdar’s latest book Üç İstanbullu Osmanlı Ailesi (Three Ottoman Families of Istanbul, Timaş Yayınları) is a feat of social history, chronicling generations of a single family amidst the backdrop of a changing nation.

Alemdar grew up listening to the saga of her illustrious ancestors and inherited a rich array of family albums: “On my father’s side there was Poetess Nigâr Hanım, on my mother’s side there was the journalist, writer, publisher, entrepreneur Ahmet Mithat Efendi. On my paternal grandmother Nebire Nigâr’s side there was the affiliation with Yahya Efendi Dergâhı and the Sultan’s Palace bureurocrats.” 

Family relics fascinated Alemdar from a young age: “I inherited a rich archive from my grandmother and from Nigâr Hanım’s youngest son Keramet Nigâr. Then there was my father’s photo albums and files. Although I’ve always wanted to write about this personal background, due to my busy professional life, I never had the time until the 2019 Covid shutdown. That was when I had the opportunity to write and share my archive with social history buffs.”

Interestingly, though she has always loved writing, publishing books came later in Alemdar’s life: “I can’t really claim to have a writing career. What my alma mater gave me was a sound education in English and liberal arts. This foundation helped me develop further respect for my ancestors, their social environment, and family archive.” 

Indeed, many of Alemdar’s ancestors were themselves fixtures of the RC community: “My grandfather Feridun Nigâr and his younger brother Keramet Nigâr joined the RC faculty in 1908 and both taught there for several decades. My father Fıtrat Nigâr RC 37, my uncles Metin Nigâr RC 36 and Vecdi Füsun Nigâr ex-RC 39, my brother Amil Kunt RC 52 are all alumni. 

This deep-rooted affiliation has kept her close to the school throughout her life: “Teaching English there for five years (1969–1974), serving on the Board of Trustees for nine years (1978–1987), and acting as President of the Alumni Association (1982–1987) are all testaments to my enduring ties with my alma mater.”