The poems of Necla Salih Suphi, one of the important names of Turkish Cypriot literature and a representative of the “Syllabist Romantic Poets” movement in the 1940s, were published in the book İçimdeki Dünya “The World Within Me” in September 2024. Suphi’s poems were compiled with the help of her daughter Nilden Eminer in the last months of her life, and after her death, they were brought together with other poems discovered by Eminer and turned into a book.
The book introduction and signing event will be held at the Turkish Cypriot Community Centre in London on November 23, 2024. In the event, Nilden Eminer will provide information about the writing process of the book in the program moderated by educator and author Ertanç Hidayettin. In addition, some of Necla Salih Suphi’s poems will be read by poets living in London; the poet and her work will be discussed with the participants.
Necla Salih Suphi was born in Lefkoşa on March 23, 1926. Suphi, who spent her childhood in Lefke and Lefkoşa, completed her primary and secondary education at Shakespeare School and then attended Victoria Girls High School. She graduated from Teachers’ College in 1945 and began teaching Turkish, Music and Handicrafts at Ayasofya Primary School. Her first encounter with poetry was during these teaching years.
Suphi, who migrated to London with her family in 1974, returned to teaching at the Ali Rıza Değirmencioğlu School in London in 1994 and focused on poetry again after a long break. Necla Salih Suphi, who passed away in London on November 10, 2000, is remembered as one of the four pioneering female poets who left their mark on Turkish Cypriot literature, along with Urkiye Mine Balman, Pembe Marmara and Emine Hazım Remzi (Engin Gönül).