We Know Its Name
how the second book got its title
The ball is an important storyteller that millions, even billions watch, listen to, and circulate its stories. The World Cup is a giant storytelling event that engages almost the entire human world.
Originated in China, the ball is over two thousand years old. Cuju, an ancient Chinese football game that literally means kick ball, was played during the Han dynasty in the third century.1 Modern football, as we know it today, was born in London and is 163 years old. It is a child of the British Empire.
Right above where the World Cup is geographically taking place, the north of the continent is burning. Canada is burning. The north is burning. They shouldn’t burn but apparently Canada is warming twice as fast than the global average.
Fire too is an important storyteller, a primordial one, that not many listen to or respect, unless it is near, unless it affects them, their families, their people... Wildfires have been screaming a lot of stories in the past decade all over the planet, effecting many indigenous communities and claiming innumerable non-human lives along the way… These fires are not “natural”, they are triggered by climate change, by the planetary warming that our species is single-handedly generating with profit-driven corporations, developed countries, their leaders and the elite class at the helm. Indeed, it is a twisted world cup with many dishonorable champions.
It is quite something to witness our species continue his quest to become champions as we keep neglecting our primal task to become companions and custodians of our planet.2 We will play football till the end of the world, that I am rather convinced. We will also retell a few ancient Greek myths3 spending hundreds of millions of dollars that too is happening. We are a species possessed.
I may attempt to watch the football finale between Spain and Argentina because I had a soft spot for these teams in the past4, because I wonder how sharing a collective sport experience would feel after almost two decades, because I am also genuinely curious about how fire and smoke touch the match, and what would spill.
Now, let me take us down to my fantasy fields where people have plants on their heads, thus they cannot play football.
We Know Its Name
We have a baby book.
It is crawling, pulling things including hair, throwing papers up in the air, making a mess in the publishing house. There has been a lot of back and forth going on between the writer (me), the editor, the translators, the proofreader and the first readers. Luckily, we love the baby book even though it is much bigger, heavier and madder than her first story sibling.
Our translators, Marie-Pierre Larras-Mura and Nathalie Sejean, have already reached the last two chapters so now the book also speaks French. Magical beings, books. Very intelligent. My wish deep down is that the story grows to be imaginative, ecological, relational, mysterious, wild, and wise.
In the mean- and enchanted-time, I am felting wool clouds and making toys5 to cool down6, to celebrate the ending of another book writing process and for us to play together. Soon, I will pen my thank-you-s, revise my biography (and see if it can be more peculiar), possibly draw an illustration for the front pages of the book and write a context (something my French publisher asks).
All these signal that we have entered the book-making process and I am yet to share the name of the book with you. It has been two months since we have known its name and with this lunar cycle, I’d like to whisper it to the winds so they can bring it near your ears.
This bundle of story-joy took its time before it revealed its name or perhaps it took me time to hear or understand it, as I was too busy holding the story together.
How Did the Second Book Get Its Name?
We were in the car driving to a kite festival in the western coast of France.
Two of the co-owners of my publishing house were sitting in the front, I, the writer, in the back. The art director, artist, tattooist, writer Chien Fou asked while driving whether the second book had a name or not. She is the one who designs the beautiful covers of La Fourmi Éditions and handwrites the names of the books and the writers, naturally she was curious with what name she would be imagining the cover.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “We don’t have a name.” I had forty chapter names but not a book name that would encompass the journey.
There, the three of us found ourselves searching for a name.
Nathalie, the editor and translator of La Graine (The Seed), and I tried our luck, “Maybe La Pousse (The Sprout)?” Chien Fou found it too short and not catchy enough. She pushed us to do better. Back then, she had not read the book so Nathalie and I began to share the elements of the book with her. But nothing was ringing a bell or forming a title.
“I have a great idea,” Nathalie jumped. “How about Paper, Scissors, Rock?” I thought she was joking. “Like the game.” She was not. I think I got mortified that she was suggesting we should name the book after a game that was not even in the book, nor was it related to it.
“No. The only thing the book and that name has in common is rock,” I said. Scissors were mentioned once, paper about twenty times. Rock, on the other hand, eighty one times, you’ll discover why. “It can be a chapter title but not the book title.” We joked about it a bit, stirring the field. Yet, her suggestion must have triggered me to find a title, something akin to a survival instinct kicked in. There are sprouts and harvests in this book, I thought to myself.
“What is harvest in French?” I asked.
“La Récolte,” Nathalie replied. I recognized the word as in Turkish we use rekolte in economy. “Harvest is an important part of the second book,” I noted and began mumbling a sentence, playing with récolte and pousse.
“La Récolte des Pousses!” Nathalie corrected my broken French.
“La Récolte des Pousses,” I repeated. “The Harvest of Sprouts, I like it.” It felt right. It also echoed one of the important themes of this book series. We all relished it. Later, we laughed at how a “bad” title triggered us to find a good one and jump on it like a life buoy.
This is how we found a name together with Chien Fou and Nathalie within the first week of my arrival in France, on the sixth day to be precise, and the sun was in Taurus, the moon in Cancer. Sometimes names come on their own, sometimes they need some inviting, some stirring, some fermenting.
Yet I was cautious, I like to take my time to get used to the sounds, the shapes, to convince and to be convinced. I like the name magic to brew and seep into the story. Waiting and making sure the story and the book accept the name is vital to me. Naming is a magical part of the creative process.
About five weeks later, we were all at the second anniversary party of La Fourmi Editions. Happy Birthday, Les Fourmis! They invited all the writers they have published to the stage to ask questions to each other and take questions from the audience.
Nathalie was on the microphone when she spilled the beans and announced the title to the audience.
Oh. She told them, I said to myself. I was not expecting it since we didn’t say anything about revealing the name of the second book but it was a celebratory moment and Nathalie followed the spark. Then, she turned at me and asked, “I shouldn’t have?” Too late. We shared a laugh. The book was named, and the name was shared with La Fourmi’s readers on a meaningful day…
La Récolte des Pousses, The Harvest of Sprouts, Filizlerin Hasadı.7
I am ecstatic, curious as well as calm and empty. Story-wise, there are a few things I am still tending to as the story bridges the second book to the third. But once the revisions are over, I shall be free to float, draw, paint, ink, and study… especially Chinese Thought that I have been looking forward to diving back to.
I hope the title of the second book and its naming process tickled your curiosity and imagination and you look forward to reading La Récolte des Pousses and keep on rooting for the story. We have truly put so much love, attention, mystery, and work into it. Like Nathalie says, and I quote with a big smile on my face and gratitude in my heart, we rererererereread the book. I am not even sure if the number of “-re” does it justice. Once we are complete, all we can do is to wait and wish that The Harvest of Sprouts, La Récolte des Pousses touches hearts, minds and imaginations.
May the winds be in your favour, dear story.
I have not mentioned or asked this before, but I fear I am doing a disservice to my book/story and publishing house by being detached from these mechanics, if you are inspired to write a review for and/or give some stars to La Graine on GoodReads or any other platforms you use to celebrate the books and communicate with other bookworms, that would be very kind of you. We would deeply appreciate it. Thank you very much.
May the fires ease and may our species release our planet from its claws…
Gizem Gizegen, 2026, Istanbul, ☉ Cancer ☽ Virgo
While writing this article, I watched a part one of the Chinese war movie, Red Cliff directed by John Woo (2008) and based on an important battle that was fought on the Yangtze River in the third century. At the end of part one, there are two parts in total, I came across with a scene of cuju that was taking place in a military camp. A curious surprise.
I wrote this piece about two years ago, during the time of the Olympics (I think), right before caving to write the first draft of La Graine.
that revolve around the hero’s journey…
Until my mid-twenties I was a devoted football fan. Then, my creative mystery journey began and the field of imagination exploded with excitement, and football did not become more creative or exciting, and we parted ways.
In case you are wondering I am rooting for Spain. I often do.
I posted some pictures as a note:
A bit of an odd choice of material companion for summer but every year around the Summer Solstice I have this great appetite to make wool toys. Is it related to the time sheep being shorn? I don’t know, perhaps…
Even though the books do not exist in Turkish yet, I like to check their names with my native tongue also.