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S'està carregant… Manamde Rima Elkouri
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Translated from French by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott. Léa is a teacher. She does not believe in silence and secrecy, and this is what she always tells her pupils. Silence isn't a large part of the inheritance she received from her Téta, her beloved Armenian grandmother, who has just died at the age of one hundred and seven. Regularly over the years her large Armenian family would gather around Téta, and she would tell stories. But there is one story that she refused to tell. As soon as Léa brought it up, Téta quickly changed the subject. Now Léa wants to find out and understand the story of her ancestors. She goes to Turkey, and with the help of a Kurdish filmmaker and guide, visits her ancestral village, Manam. She learns that during the Armenian genocide at the beginning of the twentieth century, almost the entire population of Manam was killed or fled to exile in Syria. How did her grandmother and her family survive? Rima Elkouri, with great sensitivity paints the portrait of a family that wills itself to survive. No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
Debats actualsCapCobertes populars
 Google Books — S'està carregant…GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)843.92Literature French French fiction Modern Period 21st CenturyLCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana: (4)
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For anyone with any passing understanding of the region's history in the early part of the 20th century, the locations of the village and the twin brother tell the story - the tragic part of the history of Léa's family started with the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1917 in Turkey. The family fled to Syria and that's where the brother still lives while the Syrian War is raging around him and the region is getting less and less stable (and his letters recount that - while we see them alongside the story of the past, showing that things and times change but people are always people).
Léa gets recommended a guide, a young Kurdish filmmaker, and the two of them go to the area of the village to try to discover what really happened. The tale of that trip and the tale of the past are told in parallel and one sometimes needs to stop and wonder how come we never learned from the past.
We know the grandmother made it out of Turkey, for awhile it is unclear if the granddaughter will be as lucky. The novel reads like a piece of investigative journalism - and that's intentional - that story may not be the truth but there are a lot of similar ones which are true. The Turkey of this novel - refusing to admit that the Armenia Genocide happened, refusing to admit that the Syrian border is unstable, falling down back in time rapidly - reads as the real world Turkey as well.
Novels in which people look for their past are common and when done properly can be a useful way to draw some attention to less-explored parts of history. This novel does that well - with all the bleakness and drama and heartbreak of two different eras. The style is sparse and there is more left unsaid than is actually said - and that works just fine here.
And at the end, I could not stop wondering: Will we ever learn from the past? (