La Graine

changing faces, younger self, book cover and summary

Dear Readers,

May I call you readers, now that I am about to become an author, a published kind of writer?

January, the one that was named after a god with two faces, Janus, had indeed two particular faces for me this year. A face that I have grown quite accustomed to and even bored with in the past years; the one who has been apprenticing to storytelling and writing for many years and failing to write novels. And a second face that I could only steal glimpses from; a face who began to bring a story into written words and is about to share it. They are both storytellers: one doesn’t write stories, the other does. One cannot be read, the other can.

On December 10th, I received an email with the cover of my first novel. From France. If I could travel back in time and tell my younger self that I would write a book in English and it would be published in France, she would think that her future self must be insane or from another universe because in this one such a thing would seem impossible. For one, I had learned English mostly with my own efforts after the age of eighteen so she wouldn't know that we would eventually know English, let aside write with that language. Then, how could France have accepted to publish me? Moreover, how on Earth would I have convinced myself to write in the first place? I disliked writing.

What can I say, many peculiar things have happened since I was found by stories in 2008, including the collapse of the climate of our beautiful planet… Yet sooner or later my young self would believe my sanity and insanity, imagine along or she would begin living in my universe because…

In the land of French people, a handful of extremely talented and dedicated women, who call themselves La Fourmi, are making beautiful books. And this year they are also making one for me and my story. For the first time my writing journey gives a fruit that fellow humans can see, read, smell and taste if they wish. They may or may not like it but a book is a book nonetheless. It is a fruit of an author.

Its name is La Graine. The Seed in English and Tohum in Turkish.

Its cover is created by an amazing French artist named Chien Fou who is also one of the co-owners of La Fourmi Publishing House. Merci Chien Fou for giving La Graine such an alluring, mystical and mythical face.

On the back of the book, on the flip side of this cover there is a summary that whispers what La Graine is about. Here is the translation of what La Fourmi wrote:

“In the Garden, live the people of the Plant. In the Garden, children are planted with a seed on the top of their heads so that the Single Plant can grow.

At twelve years old, Nar is old enough to be planted and must figure out how to fit into this society while her instincts whisper to her that there are other paths.

La Graine is an eco-fantasy novel that shifts and decenters the human point of view. Gizem Gizegen constructs a universe where species and elements participate, influence, and remind us of the richness of their voices.”

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After forty two years of turning around the Sun with her beloved planet and ripening her stories and storytelling, Gizem wrote a book.

On the sixth of February, the presale of the book begins. The first two hundred books are numbered, signed and stamped by La Fourmi.

And to celebrate this event, on the same day I shall publish the first chapter “The Mischievous Spirits of Lower Plants Disguised As Alcohol” here.

If you like to read, make sure you are subscribed to Storyteller Stone because once the chapter is sent out to my subscribers, I will upgrade the post into paid.

Gizem Gizegen, 2025 Istanbul, ☉ Aquarius ☽ Aries

La Graine Book Cover by Chien Fou