Among the numerous occasional Writing and Teaching Fellows to have been appointed by the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing is the Turkish writer and scholar Berkan Ulu, who visited the Creative Writing programme in 2011.

A graduate in English Language and Literature from Hacettepe University, he completed his PhD at Ankara University before joining Inonu University as a Senior Lecturer, becoming one of the co-founders of the Western Languages and Literatures Department. He is an executive member of IDEA (English Language and Research Association of Turkey). His first novels İkra and Gün will be published in early 2012. Here he reflects upon his time at UEA.

I am a visitor... The verb ‘visit' is one of the first hundred words that an English learner is exposed to. I do know what it means, I think… but I still looked it up in the OED. According to the OED, the verb form of the word ‘comes' from the Latin. But this coming is nothing like a coming home from work, for instance. Obviously the dictionary is talking about its long journey through languages – changing a few times at Station Italiano and Station de Français. It is surprising, however, to discover that it was formerly used to mean another act of ‘coming', the coming of ‘the Deity… to persons in order to comfort or benefit'. And until the seventh variation (‘to make a practice of going to persons'), there is little trace of its meaning in the sense we use today.

I am an academic visitor, which derives from Akademos, the Athenian hero who saved Helen from the hands of Theseus and Pirithous, two kings who wanted to add her to their ‘women-I-slept-with-to-avenge-the-cruelty-of-gods-against-mankind' lists. After galantly helping Castor and Pollux find their kidnapped sister, Akademos was rewarded with a large field outside the city walls of ancient Athens. In time, long after Akademos had died, this barren piece of land became a shady grove of olive and plane trees. Akademos grove was sacred to Athenians. It was also a well-known place both to locals and foreigners because of the mythological stories attributed to Athena, the Greek goddess who would go hunting and enjoy night walks under the shade of Akademos trees. Its fame, however, would cross the boundaries of ancient Greece after Plato chose this lovely spot to begin his famous school, widely known as the ‘Academy'.

And I have been invited here to write about my impressions as an academic visitor to UEA. The OED doesn't surprise me this time. The word ‘impression' derives from the Latin root imprimere, originally used to indicate ‘...application with pressure; to press a thing upon another so as to leave a mark... to imprint, stamp'. So? So, considering the word-by-word explanation of my status and case here at UEA, I am some ‘religious figure from an olive grove hoping to give comfort to people and aiming to leave a mark on something with pressure'.

But why on earth should I, a humble academic from the east of Europe, wish to visit the University of East Anglia in order to research Western culture and literature? Was it because of that East? Did that four-letter word offer the prospect of comfort and safety? Did it suggest I would feel more at home? Well, no. The reason I ignored the acceptance letters from Oxford and Cambridge (and yes, I wrote to them too in case I wouldn't be accepted by UEA) goes back to 2003, when I was a research assistant in Ankara. One hot summer's day I found a letter in my pigeonhole. It was from Andrew Motion, the poet laureate at the time, in reply to my letter asking his opinion about three of my poems. I was very picky in deciding which poems to send him and chose three that were, or so I thought, my best ever work. The envelope had the UEA logo on it and I loved the emblem despite the resemblance of the star between the letters E and A to the star in the NATO logo. His letter had the characteristically sarcastic English tone, both stylishly encouraging and ruthlessly critical. I barely wrote poetry again. But more than his advice and criticism, I was struck by the UEA logo.

For the next eight years, I wondered what the campus looked like, tried to imagine characters, made up dialogues and checked the UEA website almost every week for news of what people were up to. Being a research assistant with a fairly small salary, I had to find a scholarship or a bursary to go to UEA. Meanwhile, those eight years were occupied with finishing an MA thesis, a PhD dissertation, some academic essays and presentations, a great amount of junk office work, and pages of exam papers. But the most important development was my growing determination to become a novelist, and when at last I applied for a scholarship that allowed academics to research abroad, I only had one object in mind: to come to UEA to learn how a good Creative Writing programme is run… and to check if the UEA logo really existed.

And, thanks to the helpful staff and wonderful academics, I did achieve what I was looking for. From the leftist newspaper boy at the entrance of the Union House to the party-wasted undergraduates, from world famous writers to my hysterical Chinese neighbours, from the atheist sceptics with whom I, a fairly religious person, discussed the existence of God to talkative church fathers, from the young Creative Writing students who dream about the fat cheques that come with being published to the fifty-year-old Creative Writing students who only want to publish some short stories, and, finally, from the weeping undergraduate finance student whom I had to comfort by buying him some drinks to joyful Accommodation staff, I have been lucky to meet a lot of new (and interesting) people and to have the chance to listen to their stories. The UEA logo and flag everywhere on the campus was fascinating, too. I really don't know why I am so obsessive about logos, emblems and coats of arms. Maybe I am a logoschist? Whatever the noun is, I am sure everyone will agree that England is the right place to see emblems, lions on shields with cool Latin mottos, and captivating coats of arms. I loved the UEA logo so much that I incised the letters UEA on a small rock in the grove next to the Colney Lane Playing Fields. I am sure some enthusiastic walker will find it someday.

Being a fairly religious man, coming from an olive grove in the East, comforting sad people at the campus, and scraping the UEA logo on stones, I think dictionaries are right somehow, as always.