In the year two thousand, Turkey was a place that gave me hope for living in the future. Istanbul, which is now the capital of shopping malls, had been selected as the capital of culture back then; society had a more tolerant image, and the economy seemed strong enough to nourish alternative cultures. Everything felt spacious in those times, and while writing this book, I had faith that it would somehow be published, or at least receive support. But now... Forget about publishing books—people don't even have money to buy paper, and this book, "Hierarchy of Vulpo Noir," was denied first-book support by the Ministry of Culture. Probably because it didn't align with their vision at all. In my opinion, this is soft censorship because I don't see what this book lacks compared to books that did receive support. It's probably related to that nonsense about "our culture and values."

Independent of the Ministry of Culture, let me open this topic: there is a situation of political violence, and my generation is quite affected by this political violence. From time to time, we hear that people with some recognition, relevant or irrelevant, are taken from their homes in dawn raids as if they were lowly criminals. But why? It's a long story. Everything is clear to those who want to see. But this political violence and economic troubles have left my generation with no choice other than working or becoming an innocuous social media phenomenon. My very close friends started working for pennies even before graduating, in very hard jobs. Fortunately, I didn't have such a problem—although I was among those who started working before graduating, I believe I found the most tolerant employers within Turkey's borders.

But that's not the most distressing part of recent times. We'll all work, we'll all do something. We've seen that "living our youth" is somewhat of a luxury. The really distressing thing is having an uncriticizable personality cult in our midst and the supporters of this personality cult thinking that everything contrary to them is degenerate and socially destructive. As if the Republic of Turkey and Turkish culture were built on very weak foundations, these masses who get agitated at the slightest wind unfortunately see everything different as dangerous and problematic due to the same fear.

Hierarchy of Vulpo Noir is definitely not a book of such a period. From a perspective that sees the incomprehensible as enemy, HVP is a propaganda book—and indeed, due to the book's own nature, every character truly makes their own propaganda. However, if you read carefully, you'll notice that the book doesn't serve political purposes, and in fact criticizes propaganda. Similarly, you'll encounter the internal flaws and contradictions of the "propaganda" you'll read, and the destruction these propagandas have created while ignoring it.

I feel the need to note this upfront because I don't feel as safe as I used to. Both the Western world and Turkish society have created a culture of exclusion within themselves, and people declare those who oppose their ideas as the antichrist. I don't want to be the antichrist; I just want to convey the art I've conceived in my own style. The art in HVP is, in my opinion, "system" art.

Every science fiction work describes the aesthetics of a system, and the system I describe here is the harmonious coexistence of multiple things together. This sometimes references nuclear science, sometimes social sciences. In HVP, there is the aesthetics of society as a system. You see this frequently in dystopian books. For example, Yevgeny Zamyatin's well-known work "We" describes exactly such an aesthetic. There's a very impressive structure, but it doesn't describe a very livable society. For instance, this doesn't exist in 1984—rather than the aesthetics of a system, it refers very intensely to the dark emotions experienced by the individual. It talks about the incomprehensibility of "why" but the understanding of "how," and this doesn't show the aesthetics of a system. (What I want to point out: Does something without purpose have value? Can something that has no more value than the sum of the objects from which it was created be called aesthetic?)

HVP is exactly for this reason a book that can be misunderstood. There's no criticism of something or recommendation of something new—only the aesthetics of a self-operating system. This can be good or bad; I insistently request that you don't evaluate me as if I were a flag-bearer of anything.

The Acknowledgments Corner That's at the Beginning of Every Book

By the way, while writing the book's preface, there are people I want to dedicate the book to. These people have very little or no contribution to the book itself. In contrast, those who actively supported the book's development have a special place in my heart. However, I want to mention here the people who made me believe that I could do something, that what I was trying to do was valuable.

First, my high school literature teacher Yasemin Temirhanoğulları. Okay, this might seem very cliché, but there's nothing more useful than a person who does their job with love. I would spend every break by this woman's side, and she wouldn't brush me off—she would broaden my horizon about literature. I was very eccentric at the time and was mocked in the school environment for this among many other oddities. But thanks to this woman, I reached the pleasure of reading and was able to completely channel my drive to produce something into literature.

Second is that man whose name I can't even remember, whom I chatted with on the internet, who convinced me to continue when I thought this book was just cheap fiction. He had made me work on content that seemed childish even to sixteen-year-old me.

The third person is Tuğrul Sultanzade. Tuğrul is someone I like even though we're not close friends. He showed considerable interest in the book and gave me the direct return of my effort through his interest. He is, by the way, a more productive and creative writer than me—I've always envied him.

Do I Consider Publishing Houses?

Now I'll speak frankly. I've gotten really fed up with publishing houses and publishing house circles. What I want to do is write and produce. I don't want to be squeezed into the incomprehensible standards of publishing houses. Do they publish science fiction, for example? Yapı Kredi Publications specifically stated "No science fiction" in their submission guidelines. Because everyone over 40 I talk to believes that science fiction is cheap literature and doesn't want to question this. After entering literary circles, I understood that the reason science fiction doesn't emerge from Turkey isn't the lack of "science" (one would think we live on a mountaintop without even seeing television), but social censorship toward science fiction. People who want to write are discouraged from the very beginning, and those who proceed on this path somehow become people who don't care about social interests.

A publishing house did accept Hierarchy of Vulpo Noir... It would have been better if they hadn't. They kept me occupied for about a year and delayed the book's public release. Whenever I contacted them, I got a condescending response like "We're very busy, sister, come back later," and they didn't even try to make me feel like I belonged there. Finally, they submitted the book to the Ministry of Culture for first novel support, without any preliminary editing, etc. I mentioned the result. Rather than giving money to incompetent men to publish my book with pleas and begging, I found it more appropriate to publish the book directly here.

By the way, I have no resentment toward the publishing houses that rejected the book. I've been working on HVP for ten years, and both my writing and the book's content have developed considerably. Reading the first version I sent to publishing houses made me feel sick—why would a publishing house publish such a book? I rewrote and reconstructed it many times; I feel that even if it hasn't reached the perfect form of the book, it's approaching it, but I no longer have the enthusiasm to try my luck again.