Our Broken Toys
Even though he was poor, Hans Christian Andersen's father would make a pile of toys. The cloth puppets crafted by his shoemaker father's skilled hands and the stage where he performed with them became the most beloved toys of the famous Danish writer's childhood.
Andersen manages to strike up a friendship with a six-year-old girl named Züleyha on the railing of the ship that brought him to Istanbul in 1841. Yes, this is an achievement; because Turkish children are strictly warned not to interact with foreigners. But Andersen even makes Züleyha sit on his knees. The beginning of this friendship is a toy: "She showed me her toy, it was a horse-shaped water jug with a tiny bird on each of its ears; if I could speak Turkish, I would have immediately made up and told her a fairy tale about this toy."
Andersen must have seen an Eyüp toy in Züleyha's hand; a horse-shaped water jug with a tiny bird on each of its ears!.. Züleyha, not knowing that the foreigner she sat on his knees was a writer who penned the most beautiful fairy tales for children, behaves in a surprising way: "While entering from the Dardanelles towards the Sea of Marmara, the daughter of Asia gave me a kiss..." This innocent kiss activates Andersen's imagination... And he begins to dream of a "One One Night" fairy tale featuring Züleyha and the toy in her hand... whispers Sunay Akın to our ears. In one of his masterful stories written in the magical gap between fiction and reality...
Our Broken Toys
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