Portrait of a Turkish Family |
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Irfan Orga
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Pages: 316 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0907871828
Pub: Eland Publishing Ltd
Pub date: 2002-07-31
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 109936
Reader Reviews:
Refreshing Realism (9/13 people found this helpful)
This open, vivid biography shows how ordinary Turkish people suffered great family and economic losses during the First World War. A fresh well written account which is enlightening as much as it is educational.
A haunting evocation of despair and dogged survival (24/24 people found this helpful)
A haunting evocation of a childhood in late Ottoman/early Republican Turkey where the abrupt collapse of a single family's fortunes mirrors the disintegration of the old state and a dogged determination to rebuild a new life from, literally, the ashes of the old. The depth of detail in Orga's recollection of his early childhood is quite astonishing. Yet the book is as much about his mother as himself; and what he doesn't he do or say -- perhaps, as his grandmother says, couldn't do or say -- to prevent her decline from effervescent teenage bride into a deranged middle-aged widow. I stayed up until 2 am, mesmerised as the heady flow of his childhood memories gave way to fragmented anecdotes of adolescence and early adulthood and his mother's sanity too began to fracture and then collapse completely, leaving Orga as burnt-out a shell as the ruins of his childhhod home. Extraordinary to think that he should name his son Ates (Fire) when it was a fire that triggered such material and psychological devastation in his family.
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Subjects -> Biography -> Political -> General AAS
Books -> Subjects -> Biography -> General AAS
Books -> Subjects -> History -> Countries & Regions -> Asia -> Middle East -> Turkey
Books -> Subjects -> Travel & Holiday -> General
Books -> Subjects -> Travel & Holiday -> Countries & Regions -> Asia -> Turkey
Books -> Subjects -> Travel & Holiday -> Countries & Regions -> Middle East -> General AAS
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Paperback
Books -> Refinements -> Font Size (format_browse-bin) -> Regular Size