Middle East/North African Lit discussion

Hi everyone,
I am so sorry about my slowness in opening this thread. I want to get my hands on some background info but haven't had a chance to look for what I have in mind, so I will edit this post soon to include it.

In the meantime, feel free to begin discussing. I know some of you have begun reading, and some are also reading at least one of the other selections. I'm curious to know who is reading the Mernissi book and who is reading the Fromkin book alongside this one?

I have read Birds without Wings a few years ago and I just started the Fromkin book. I plan to read the Mernissi book soon.

I have this novel and I want to read it , but I think I will not start reading it before going deeper in A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East .

I have been finding that this book correlates nicely with the events in Fromkin's. I am enjoying it, and once again like the shirt chapters (I read the Mernissi book a few months ago and enjoyed it too).

Constance , speeking of Mernissi book , I find your avatar to be very interesting !

looking forward hearing your thoughts about that book in the discussion .

I hope to start reading this novel soon, I've got my copy at home :-)

Out of curiosity, how was the book -or rather, the author- selected for this group?

okyrhoe wrote: "I hope to start reading this novel soon, I've got my copy at home :-)

Out of curiosity, how was the book -or rather, the author- selected for this group?"

Waiting for your thoughts :)

*For how we chose it (put it in the poll) ; since there arn't so many choices among native authors regarding this genre , we included Non – native authors, both Marieke and Ghada recommended this novel.

Now it is my turn :) I wonder what made you that Curious ?

I'm very interested in your reaction to this book, Okyrhoe. :)

Even thought the author isn't native, his grandfather was a soldier there and the author spent a lot of time retracing his grandfather's time in an effort to develop a strong sense of and connection with the land, people, and history.

Just curious as to what other books are available out there.
Some time ago I was interested in finding information about Turkish novels set in that period but didn't manage to locate much (in English, at least).
It's a shame about the dearth of available translations of "native" fiction dealing with that period.
I have read two novels so far by Turkish writers (translated into Greek) about the population exchanges following the Treaty of Lausanne; both stories were set in Crete.
- Children of War by Ahmet Yorulmaz
- Kritimu by Saba Altinsay

I really enjoyed this book. I found de Benieres extremely sympathetic to the plight of the people involved. He seems to agree with the maxim of Steven Weinberg's "....good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." It was interesting to read that one of his grandfather's had been there.

i just started reading this book today. looks promising. how abt its historical side, how accurate is it?

It seems to be pretty accurate. There were several parts which I was curious about, and when I looked them up, they seemed to be dead-on.

Paras wrote: "how abt its historical side, how accurate is it?"

I haven't started reading the book yet, but I've researched a bit of the novel's background.
Bernieres apparently was inspired to write the book after visiting the ghost town of Kayaköy. The Eskibahce of the novel is a fictional place name. The author later re-visited Kayaköy to promote his novel.

From the Greek side of the history, there is a rich bibliography, both nonfictional and fictional about the population exchanges, for this upheaval impacted mainland Greece more so than modern Turkey.

Some Greek reviewers claim Bernieres was influenced by Dido Sotiriou's novel Farewell Anatolia (1962), which is available in many languages, including Turkish. I can't give you an opinion on that, I'm not yet familiar with either novel. Other Greek works available in English are Ilias Venezis’ Number 31328 (1924), Stratis Doukas’ A prisoner’s story (1929), and the recent novel by Panos Karnezis, The Maze. A personal account is documented in Thea Halo's Not Even My Name.

One historical survey written in English is Crossing the Aegean,
An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey (scroll down the page and you will get to the link for the extensive bibliography used in Hirschon's book). See also Twice a Stranger: The Mass Expulsions That Forged Modern Greece and Turkey (also available as a documentary film. For first-person historical perspectives, you can look up Henry Morgenthau's & George Horton's published accounts; both were U.S. ambassadors to the region at the time.

I don't know if anyone has seen this documentary, but even though it happened only 30 years ago, I thought it was pretty interesting to connect it to the book, specially with the — too short — chapter 27 The Tyranny of Honour

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/w...

Just a short note to say I'm behind on my reading, and not even halfway through the book. It's been very hot in Athens, one can barely think & breathe, let alone concentrate on work, or reading.

I'll put some links to songs of that era in the music thread.

Thank you for the links. They were helpful :) I am off to Fromkin's book

I know this thread is 6 years old but I just started reading Birds Without Wings this morning. I was wondering about the accuracy, as I read some reviewers saying Louis de Bernières got some important historical facts wrong. It's reassuring to know after reading the comments on this thread that it seems to be accurate. Honestly I don't want to waste my time reading false information!

Hi Jalilah, It is a novel but according to comments above, it's pretty close to historically accurate. I haven't personally looked into it. I was thrown off by knowing that the book was somehow connected to Kayakoy which I believe is quite a bit south of where this book is set but after reading the comments above, realize now that Kayakoy was not in the book (was it?).

Anyway, I bought the book in Istanbul because I like reading about places that I'm visiting. I enjoyed it and learned something about the history of the region. Since reading it, I've visited formerly Greek towns in Turkey and spent a vacation in Armenia. The book gave me another perspective. I wish I still had my copy but it went the way of many of my books - onto someone else's bookshelf.