Kate Bernstock
(They/Them)
Kate is a writer whose work seeks to tell the stories of those left behind by history. Shining a light on the landscapes and contexts of the forgotten figures of the past gives us a glimpse of the shadows their figures cast across those spaces, helping us understand the ways they shaped, and were shaped by, their world that is now ours. Feelings of anger, guilt, hopelessness etc. led me to the history of the Chieras; non-muslim, mostly Jewish women, who worked ferrying goods and gossip to and from the court of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. ‘Kira / Kyra / Kiera / Chiera’ nurtures one seed of possibility; the love that might have been between a Jewish woman and her Muslim counterpart living in the Sultan's harem.
Work by Kate