Ülkü Tamer’s book "Yaşamak Hatırlamaktır" ("Living Is Remembering") can be read as one of the most modest yet profound examples within the memoir genre. What gives this text its strength is not the historical significance of the events it recounts, but the human warmth and literary subtlety of the act of remembering. From the very beginning, the author guides the reader, explaining what he is not doing in order to reveal what he is: "This book is not a biography. At most, it is lines drawn from my life.”

Fragments of memory

This sentence establishes both the boundaries and the aesthetic ambition of the book. Tamer does not narrate a life story; he shares fragments left by memory, traces of emotions. Here, the question is less "What did I experience?” than "What remained within me?” As he admits, "I never kept a diary in my life. I never took notes.”

This confession is key to understanding the nature of the text. We encounter not a planned, chronological memoir, but a stream of memory shaped by associations and feelings. Memories call upon one another: a place may summon a person, a person evoke a sound and a sound bring back an era. The narrative is alive, revealing the past as it is remembered rather than presenting it as a fixed story. Everyday details take precedence over major historical events: "There are no ‘character analyses’ inside. Only tiny events.”

Indeed, throughout the book, what appears are not great historical upheavals but a child’s fear, a holiday morning, or the screen of a neighborhood cinema. Yet it is precisely these "tiny events” that make visible the spirit of an era, the texture of a city and the inner world of a person. One striking example is childhood fear. In an age before consistent electricity, when lamps were used, young Ülkü is startled by the sound a lamp makes as it goes out: "I used to cry so the lamp wouldn’t make a puffing sound.”

At first glance, this seems like a charming childhood anecdote. Yet behind it lies the material conditions of the time, the dark nights and domestic life. Tamer conveys this not through an analysis of poverty or hardship, but through the genuine fear of a child, allowing the reader to feel both the period’s circumstances and the fragility of a child’s psyche.

One of the emotional backbones of the book is the figure of the father. The narrative opens with a simple sentence "My father was known as ‘İpekçi Tahsin (Tahsin the Silk Merchant).’”

Even this alone serves as a social-historical clue. A nickname, a profession, a city identity. A following anecdote situates the father not only within the family but also in the city’s collective memory: "Your father led in two things; he brought two innovations to Antep.”

Here, individual memory intersects with social history. Even the fact that his father married a bride from another city is recalled as an "innovation,” hinting at the closed structure of the city, prevailing traditions and social boundaries of the time. Tamer does not exaggerate his father into a heroic figure; he is depicted primarily through love, loyalty and protectiveness. Details such as remaining at the hospital during the mother’s illness are conveyed without dramatic language, enhancing the emotional resonance. The reader feels the significance because of its sincerity, not because it is declared.

City and everyday life

The city, in this memoiric universe, is not a mere backdrop. Gaziantep appears as a living entity. Streets, coffeehouses, cinemas and vineyards are recounted with their names, atmospheres and sounds. When open-air cinemas are described, the narrative evokes not only the films but also the coolness of summer nights, the chill of soda bottles and the sense of sitting side by side with neighbors. Space is a realm of feeling; the city is an active subject, not a passive stage.

Cinemas are particularly noteworthy. For young Tamer, cinema is not merely entertainment but a window into other lives. Open-air screens, neighborhood shows and shivers experienced during horror films, cinema nourishes the imagination. These scenes reveal the emotional dimension of provincial life interacting with modern culture, portrayed not sociologically but through the lens of childhood experience.

Animals also inhabit this memory universe. The cat "Bico," in particular, transcends the role of a mere pet to become part of the character of the family and neighborhood. Bico’s fights, disappearances and returns imbue the text with warmth and humor. In Tamer’s world, life is remembered not only through human interactions but through the environment as a whole.

Tamer’s identity as a poet frequently surfaces in the text’s language. A metaphor he uses to describe memory illustrates this poetic sensibility: "As I wrote in one of my poems, ‘white birds in the dark.’”

Darkness signifies oblivion and the white birds are memories that emerge suddenly and vanish. The book is thus a collection of luminous moments rather than a continuous narrative.

Writing as remembering

Another important aspect of the text is the act of writing itself. Tamer explains that he began this book encouraged by a close friend and that it allowed him to "regain the pleasure of writing.” Remembering is not merely looking back; it is an act performed in the present. Writing reconstructs, selects, interprets and shares the past. Unshared memory is incomplete; writing grants memory a second life.

Taken together, "Living Is Remembering" asserts a powerful idea: life consists not of grand events but of small moments. The sound of a lamp, a holiday morning, a neighborhood cinema, a cat walking through the courtyard. These are not trivial details but the essence of lived experience. Tamer transforms what grand historical narratives overlook – domestic sounds, neighborhood scents, childhood shames, small joys – into literature.

Ultimately, this book is less a life story than a literary expression of a way of remembering. Tamer captures the poetry in ordinary life. With unadorned, clear and heartfelt language, he records the everyday memory of a generation. A person truly lives only as much as they can remember. Forgotten life disappears; remembered and recounted life achieves a second existence through writing. Tamer’s achievement is to make lived time live again through remembering.