ddl international
The ddl mark

ddl international

san francisco · paris · istanbul

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 Istanbul.

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, a prepress desk for print — but they are built by the same Istanbul-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 canonical gate to the working instrument; parrhesia1.com serves the same instrument as a mirror.

  • 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. The center’s own site, with its seminars, is hekimbasi.center.

  • 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

    For people moving to and living in Istanbul: answers about paperwork, housing, health, work and daily life, each with its basis. Not an official institution.

  • BladeRunner

    A prepress proofing desk for printers and designers. From the paper, the ink and the press settings, it measures on the user’s own machine how far print will drift from the screen: dot gain (TVI), total ink coverage (TAC), drying and scorch risks.

  • VoiceRunner

    A prototype sonic proofing surface built on the same runner core as BladeRunner: source, intent, chain, gates and a reproducible receipt in one place. It does not yet claim a measured neural render.

books

ddl publishes in English and in Turkish. The two lists share an editorial standard rather than a catalogue: fiction, non-fiction and pamphlets in English, in five lists; in Turkish, literature, history and risaleler in ten series, 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, in five lists: Pamphlets, Fiction, Non-Fiction, YA and Kids. It introduces the seven Dixon Hill novels by Adnan Barutçu and The Autarkeia Paradox — An Essay on Pluribus by Levent Yılmaz; it also publishes Stone, Fruit and Name, the short history of the olive coast made for the ddl olive box. Its catalogue is open to other writers.

    • Pamphletsnumbered essays
    • Fictionnovels and stories
    • Non-Fictionhistory, essays, narrative
    • YAyoung adult
    • Kidschildren

  • ddl kitap

    The Turkish list: literature, history and risaleler in ten series — from Krank Mili, world literature in new translations, to the Hekimbaşı Library and the two Zıvana series.

    • Krank Miliworld literature
    • DDL Kurgufiction
    • DDL Kurgu-dışınon-fiction
    • Genç DDLyoung adult
    • DDL Çocukchildren
    • Risalelernumbered essays
    • Zıvana Dergijournal
    • Zıvana Kitapbilingual editions
    • Hekimbaşı Kitaplığıintellectual history, classics
    • Hekimbaşı Ayrıbasımone essay, one book

  • 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 open: the two groves, the analyses lot by lot, and The Wildest Blend, the Christmas 2026 box.

  • 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

  • The Wildest Blend

    The Christmas 2026 box: five hundred numbered boxes, each signed by Elvan Alpay. Inside, a 250 ml bottle of early-harvest, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil — nine parts of the house’s own oil to one part delice, the wild olive — and the book Stone, Fruit and Name, a short history of the olive coast by Levent Yılmaz. Price and ordering are announced on the branch’s site when ordering opens.

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.