Smyrna in Flames

by Homero Aridjis, Lorna Scott Fox (Translator)

Smyrna, September 13–22,1922. The Turkish army under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and its irregulars, known as chettes, attack Greeks and Armenians in this ancient “City of Tolerance.” They randomly murder the men, rape, and torture the women and young girls, set buildings aflame, and plunder at will. Nicias Aridjis, after years of fighting in the Greco-Turkish War, has come to Smyrna to rescue Eurydice, the woman he left behind and return with her to Greece. Nicias, our eyewitness, wanders through crowds of Greeks and Armenians who are desperate to escape genocide. Then a catastrophic fire wipes off the map the Greek and Armenian quarters of Smyrna. Victims number in the tens of thousands; as many as 100,000 refugees manage to flee.

This surrealistic narrative draws on the memoirs of the author’s father, and on historical studies. Lorna Scott Fox’s remarkable translation preserves the poetic prose of author

Homero Aridjis, whom Kenneth Rexroth described as a “visionary poet of lyrical bliss.” Aridjis immortalizes the last apocalyptic days of 3,000-year-old Smyrna, soon to be replaced by Izmir.

Over nine days in September 1922, the Turkish army and its sadistic irregulars brutalized and murdered the Greeks and Armenians of Smyrna and set fire to their municipal quarters. “So many hacked bodies …. the whole of Smyrna is an abattoir,” says Nicias Aridjis to himself as he wanders through the city in search of his lost love. Through his eyes, we witness the Asia Minor Catastrophe, about which much has been written. Yet no writer has captured the unfolding tragedy so vividly—and so poetically—as Homero Aridjis, whose narrative is based on the memoirs of his father. The real Nicias Aridjis was there—and managed to escape.

Genres: Historical Fiction

168 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2013

About the author

Homero Aridjis, a Mexican writer and diplomat, was born to a Greek father and Mexican mother; he was the youngest of five brothers. As a child, Aridjis would often walk up a hillside near his home to watch the migrating monarch butterflies. As he grew older logging thinned the forest. This and other events in his life caused him to co-found the Grupo de los Cien, the Group of 100, an association of one hundred artists and intellectuals that became heavily involved in trying to draw attention to and solve environmental problems in Mexico.

Aridjis has published 38 books of poetry and prose, many of them translated into a dozen languages. His achievements include: the Xavier Villarrutia Prize for best book of the year for Mirándola dormir, in 1964; the Diana-Novedades Literary Prize for the outstanding novel in Spanish, for Memorias del nuevo mundo, in 1988; and the Premio Grinzane Cavour, for best foreign fiction, in 1992, for the Italian translation of 1492, Vida y tiempos de Juan Cabezón de Castilla.1492 The Life and Times of Juan Cabezon of Castile was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Twice the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Aridjis has taught at Indiana University, New York University and Columbia, and held the Nichols Chair in Humanities and the Public Sphere at the University of California, Irvine. The Orion Society presented him with its John Hay Award for significant achievement in writing that addresses the relationship between people and nature. He received the Prix Roger Caillois in France for his poetry and prose and the Smederevo Golden Key Prize for his poetry. In 2005 the state of Michoacan awarded him the first Erendira State Prize for the Arts. Eyes to See Otherwise: Selected Poems of Homero Aridjis is a wide-ranging bilingual anthology of his poetry.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Χρυσή-Σίσυ Αγγελίδου · Rating 3 out of 5]

Σμύρνη 1919 … Ο ελληνικός στρατός παρελαύνει στην προκυμαία της πόλης … Σμύρνη 1922 … οι Έλληνες κατακρεουργούνται στην προκυμαία της πόλης … και Η Σμύρνη στις φλόγες … Το συγκλονιστικό βιβλίο του Ομέρο Αριτζίς για τις τελευταίες μέρες της πόλης, η οποία αποτέλεσε το τέλειο δείγμα της πολυπολιτισμικότητας. Ο Ομέρο Αριτζίς παρουσιάζει τις τελευταίες μέρες της Σμύρνης μέσα από τις ιστορίες που έλεγε σε αυτόν και στα αδέρφια του στο Μεξικό. Το ξεχωριστό σε αυτό το βιβλίο είναι ότι είναι από τις λίγες φορές που περιγράφεται η τραγωδία των Ελλήνων της Σμύρνης με τόσες λεπτομέρειες. Είναι από τα ελάχιστα βιβλία, πέραν των ιστορικών, που περιγράφουν τις τελευταίες στιγμές της τόσο ξεχωριστής αυτής πόλης.
Αναλυτικά η άποψή μου ...
http://aisthisis.gr/vivlioaisthiseis/...

[Μαρία · Rating 4 out of 5]

Αν η καρδιά σας αντέχει τις πραγματικά λεπτομερείς περιγραφές της κτηνωδίας που έλαβε χώρα στη Σμύρνη του '22, τότε το συστήνω ανεπιφύλακτα. Είναι ένα υπέροχο ανάγνωσμα που ξεκινά με την απόβαση του ελληνικού στρατού στη Σμύρνη έως την απόλυτη καταστροφή της.

[Κonstantina · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very intense and vivid description of the massacre of those days, than may create uncofortable feelings and thoughts regarding the human brain and feelings...
More than this, the agitation of present and past, of realism and phantasy, of consious and unconsious is the most exceptional characteristic of this book.

[Maria Patra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Εξαιρετικό βιβλίο. Μια απλή γραφή που μόνο απλά δεν εξιστορουσε τα πράγματα. Το συνιστώ ανεπιφύλακτα.

[Yiannis Lvr · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Αν ο διάολος είχε εθνικότητα, θα ήταν Τούρκος και, αν είχε όνομα θα τον έλεγαν Μουσταφά Κεμάλ..."

[Eleni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Συγκλονιστικό...

[David Zhao · Rating 5 out of 5]

a dark and homeric fictional memoir, recounting the 1922 burning of Smyrna. Homero Aridjis, the Mexican-born son of a Greek survivor of the genocidal massacre, interweaves ancient references to the great poems and myths of Ionia to tell this story, beautifully translated from the original Spanish

[Gandalf84 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunningly written. So haunting. I've been giving this book to all of my friends.