ddl international
The ddl mark

ddl international

san francisco · paris · ayvalık

ddl is the parent company in which ai, books, olive & olive oil, news and art are constitutive branches.

Each branch keeps its own name, its own address and its own way of working. What they share is a house and a discipline: that a thing should be made with care, and that what it claims should be traceable. ddl works between San Francisco, Paris and Ayvalık, where the house has its seat.

ddl was founded by levent yılmaz, historian, poet and publisher.

ai

ddl’s work in artificial intelligence begins from a single relation: between a claim and the evidence for it. The instruments below differ in audience, language and purpose — a verification engine, a private research library, a companion, a Turkish answer service — but they are built by the same Ayvalık-based team and share one habit: where an answer rests on a source, the source is shown.

  • Parrhesia

    Parrhesia is an epistemic verification instrument for questions, research and writing. It opens the sources an answer depends on, reads them, and binds each claim to evidence that can be reopened; when it cannot verify something, it says so rather than filling the gap. parrhesia.one is the working instrument; parrhesia1.com describes the house that builds it.

  • HECAS · kütüphane

    The private research engine of HECAS, the Hekimbaşı Center for Advanced Studies in Istanbul. It is reserved for academic research: every claim carries its source, and what cannot be verified is stated openly.

  • sebil

    sebil is a conversational companion from Ayvalık — in its own words, dert ortağı, kader dostu, fikir arkadaşı: someone to share a trouble, a fate or an idea with. It speaks Turkish, English and Greek, the languages of the town and its history.

  • bilelim

    bilelim answers questions in Turkish and shows, beside each answer, the addresses of the sources found for that question. It works across Türkiye and offers a free chat demo together with tools for preparation.

  • expat istanbul

    A guide for foreigners settling in Istanbul: the practical questions of arriving, living and staying, answered with care. The service is in preparation.

books

ddl publishes in English and in Turkish. The two lists share an editorial standard rather than a catalogue: fiction, historical writing and pamphlets in English; in Turkish, literature and history under several imprints, including lists for young adults and for children. The literary journal Zıvana keeps its own name and editorial identity within the family.

  • ddl books

    The international list, in English: fiction, historical writing and pamphlets. It introduces the seven Dixon Hill novels and Pluribus by Adnan Powdererson, and its catalogue is open to other writers.

  • ddl kitap

    The Turkish list: literature, history and risaleler, published under five imprints and alongside Zıvana.

    • DDL
    • Krank Mili
    • Hekimbaşı Kitaplığı
    • Genç DDLyoung adult
    • Çocuk DDLchildren

  • Zıvana

    A journal of literature, translation and counter-voice — in its own phrase, the zıvana between one language and another. It keeps its own name and editorial identity within the publishing family.

olive & olive oil

Olives and olive oil are the branch closest to the land around Ayvalık, where the house has its seat. The branch’s own site is in preparation.

  • ddl olive

    ddl olive was founded to make, from the centuries-old olive trees of Ayvalık, an olive oil whose stamp can be trusted; our aim is not to grow, but to be able to show everything we say. We have two groves: Domaine Alpay, from a single parcel and stone-pressed on site, and Domaine Kaptan, which carries the broader soil of the North Aegean. Same variety, same year, same hand, but different soil. We do not blend the two oils; we set them side by side, because that difference is exactly what we want to convey. We pick our olives by hand, press them the same day and have every lot measured in a laboratory; we share acidity and polyphenol values not as claims but as results of analysis. We are restoring our groves with a care that will take years, and we record the good seasons and the hard ones alike. For us, the value of an olive oil comes from this: that the labour behind it, and the word given, can be measured.

    • Domaine Alpaysingle parcel · stone-pressed
    • Domaine KaptanNorth Aegean
    • ddl-olive.comreserved

news

ddl’s news titles are published in Turkish: one rooted in a single town, one in preparation.

  • ayvalık news

    Ayvalık’s own paper, published online with a noon edition at 13:00 — the town’s news, read at lunchtime.

  • bilelim news

    The news title of bilelim. It is in preparation.

art

Art at ddl means artists’ work and the special editions the house makes around it: objects made in small numbers, with the same care as a book.

  • Elvan Alpay

    The work of Elvan Alpay. Pánta Rheî — everything flows — gathers works from 2021 to 2025.

  • ddl limited

    Special, limited-edition work from ddl international. The boutique is being prepared; until it opens, the site announces what is coming.