Google gathers the data for me: "depending on the context, here are the most common English equivalents" for the word uçurum: "Abyss / Chasm: A deep, immeasurable gulf or crack in the earth. Cliff / Precipice: A steep, high face of rock. Metaphorical Gap: A wide divide or disparity between two things."

uçurum returns regularly in conversations with a dear friend who, like me, not only thinks and studies decolonisation but embodies it. The first uçurum we name together is the one between bodies: those who experience and remember, and those who only read about the experience and the remembrance.

The Nişanyan dictionary tells me that uçurum comes from a Middle Turkish word meaning "a deep slope, a place to fall into." One search leads to another, and in this linguistic quest I find myself inside the thing I am trying to name: looking into the many definitions of uçurum, watching it deepen.

In Littérature et Révolution, writer Joseph Andras and writer and sociologist Kaoutar Harchi invite us into a nuanced and caring 240-page conversation on the role of political engagement in literature. The exchange starts with the premise that all writers are engagés, only some writers’ political engagement is to the world as it is, while others’ lies in changing it, with varying degrees of success. It fascinates me that the English translation of the French word “engagé” requires the addition of the word “politically” to convey the same meaning. In engagé, the political dimension is inherent. Yet, as the writers highlight, political engagement isn’t always directed toward social justice and equality.