My crossingChapter V / V2019–2020

Mme Swann

What crosses from one world to another : the name

Ülker held the company together, then the family. When she died, her name still had to be set right.

Ülker Swann by a pond in the Bois de Boulogne, in the snow. Family photograph.

The woman who held on

For years Alexander worked with his mother; at the office he called her Mme Swann. She spoke four languages, ran the administration with an iron hand and faced lawsuits, bailiffs and storms alone. When she fell, she got back up.

31 August 2019

Emine Ülker died in Gagny, aged seventy-four.

The name set right

French records had registered her under the name Uctum, her adoptive father’s. In 2020, proceedings before the public prosecutor in Bobigny corrected her parentage: she became Emine Aygün again, daughter of Hasan Aygün and Hatice Neriman Önergin. To her son, she remains Ülker Swann.