Şebnem İşigüzel gave birth to her daughter in 1998 and, for some time afterwards, found herself unable to compose much of anything apart from shopping lists. In those days, which she spent trying to care for a baby, dressed in trousers with zippers busted by her new bulges, she began to write essays about her everyday life. She began to publish her essays in the magazine Öküz, for which Orhan Pamuk too wrote. It was in these essays that Şebnem İşigüzel first wrote about her pregnancy and her child-rearing experiences. It was here that she wrote of her daily conversations with her neighbour, Madame Marika, and penned pointed, precise, head-on criticism of social realities.

 

Following these essays came her highly praised articles for the newspaper Radikal. Here she presented to her readers her own take on the fast-paced, ever colourful agenda of Turkey, at times via media criticism. Addressing the developments at times with biting sarcasm, at times with wit, in these articles İşigüzel never hesitates to tackle events most plaguing to the public’s conscience. Young girls committing suicide as a result of family pressure, youths whose lives are ruined due to sexual harassment, families destroyed by poverty, Armenian children orphaned amidst the great tragedy that befell Anatolia in 1915, are amongst the subjects she addresses.