Neshe Yashin is a poet. A dissident Turkish Cypriot, she lives in the southern Greek Cypriot sector of divided Nicosia instead of the Turkish north. Last week she, along with the first lady of the Greek Cypriot theatre, Jenny Giatanopoulou, received the prestigious Pierides prize in recognition of their contributions to Cypriot culture. Commenting on the award, Yashin said, "The best thing about poetry is that it cannot lie. . . when poets lie their work loses its strength. . . The power of poetry is not to dominate, but to raise others with you, to embrace others."
Although settled amongst a people who do not speak her tongue, she continues to write in Turkish and even recites her verses to Greek-speaking audiences who hear the music even if they do not fully grasp the meaning of her words - which they read in English translation. She teaches Turkish language and literature to Greek Cypriot students at the Cyprus University where the department of Turkish studies has some 70 students, two other full-time language teachers and seven lecturers in Turkish history, sociology and culture.
And she hosts an hour-long English language radio talk show every Tuesday night. Thanks to the new UN-installed automatic phone lines Turkish Cypriots as well as Greek Cypriots are able to phone in and air their views. Yashin was born in 1959 in the mixed mountain village of Peristerona on this side of the line one year before Cyprus gained its independence and four years before the troubles began. Her father, Oskar Yashin, the Turkish Cypriot "national poet", used to recite verse to her as he drove her from the village to kindergarten in Nicosia. "So by the time I was four I was talking in a poetic way and my father took down my poems," she said.
Intercommunal strife drove the Yashin family into the northern Nicosia Turkish enclave in 1964 where, at six, Neshe wrote her first poem. "I was published in a serious magazine in 1977, when I was 18," she stated. She studied sociology at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, married a mainlander and gave birth to a son. But the marriage ended in divorce and she returned to the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of North Cyprus in 1986. "Although I was known as a strong opposition person, I applied and was given a teaching job. . . perhaps because I had been silent for some time. But this was taken away. I was writing in opposition newspapers, I did not keep silent. . . Then I submitted tens of applications but there were no jobs. I was desperate so I took jobs as telephonist/receptionist or secretary in the private sector but there was pressure on the bosses who apologised."
She was ostracised because she preached intercommunal understanding and Cypriot unity rather than the separatism proclaimed by the Turkish Cypriot leadership. "We Cypriots have more in common with each other than we have with people in Greece or Turkey," she says. "We should stick together."
Jobless, she continued to write. In 1993 she won the only literary award in the north. Her eyes sparkled in amusement when she revealed that after the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mr Rauf Denktash, presented her with the award, she spoke on the theme of "poets being disobedient to authority throughout history". Mr Denktash turned to a friend of hers and asked: "Is she speaking against me?" "Of course not," came the reply.
Yashin came to the south in 1996, to teach a three-month course at the university. She stayed on. "I don't have any trouble in my job here," she asserted.
Her career in contrariness mirrors that of her father who attempted to serve as an opposition politician and to publish a newspaper in the north but departed, deeply disappointed, in 1987 for Istanbul where he continues to write poetry and novels.
And, the father's career, in part, mirrors that of his daughter. In a ceremony in February of this year Mr Denktash presented to the dissident father the very same prize won by the dissident daughter five years earlier. He has yet to win an award in the south.
She is now working on a multilingual film script with Greek Cypriots. Fifteen of her poems have been included in Nicosia, a recently published book about the divided capital.
"Which Half", sums up the Cypriot situation perfectly:
They say a person should love their homeland that's also what my father often says My homeland has been divided in two which of the two pieces should I love."