New Swedish Books, Autumn 2018 1
New Swedish Books 24 Embroideries With a handful
of carefully selected close-ups – a shoulder, a mulberry, a piece of jewellery – Burcu Sahin creates her memory montage. One image in particular that returns in various guises throughout the book is the ever busy hands of women: sewing, cooking, weaving, feeding, tending, crocheting, embroidering, mending, braiding, washing. Women’s hands whose work is underpaid or unpaid, women’s hands that give and take and hold each other. Sahin’s poetry suite follows the silk threads that run through mothers and their mothers, daughters and their daughters, but also observes how this continuity can be broken by time and migration. Lamenting that which is not passed on, she writes: “The poems you never wrote have been archived / they exude a dazzling light / resting in a state of whiteness / and it is this light that remains out of reach”. Burcu Sahin (b. 1993) Embroideries Publisher Albert Bonniers Förlag www.albertbonniersforlag.se Rights Albert Bonniers Förlag Helene Atterling helene.atterling@ albertbonniersforlag.se Burcu Sahin teaches creative writing at Biskops Arnö writing school and at Skrivarakademin in Stockholm. Embroideries is her first book. Photo: Carla Orrego Veliz