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Kirkus Reviews (Print)
November 15, 2014, Saturday
THERE WAS AND THERE WAS NOT
A Journey Through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond
by Meline Toumani
KIRKUS REVIEW
A young Armenian-American journalist examines her identity and personal history.
New York Times contributor Toumani grew up hating Turkey. She knew
that between 1915 and 1923, nearly 1 million Armenians were massacred
and another 1 million deported from the Ottoman Empire, a surge of
violence that punctuated generations of oppression. She also knew that
the Armenian diaspora was obsessed with world recognition of the
conflict as genocide, a term that Turkey vehemently rejected. Even 100
years later, many Armenians are still ferocious in their abhorrence of
all things Turkish. But for Toumani, that hatred had come "to feel
like a chokehold, a call to conformity," and she wanted "to understand
how history, identity, my clan and my feeling of obligation to it, had
defined me." That search took her to Turkey, where she lived for more
than two years, interviewing writers, historians, students, professors
and activists about the fraught relationship of Turks to ethnic
minorities. Cautious about admitting that she was Armenian, Toumani
discovered that once she did, "the distance from 'Nice to meet you' to
the words 'so-called genocide' was sometimes less than two minutes
long." Many Turks claimed to have Armenian friends, but stereotypes
were deeply entrenched: Armenians were greedy, shifty and duplicitous.
The murder of an outspoken journalist who worked to find common ground
between Turks and Armenians brought political hatreds into stark view.
Arriving with the idea that "soft reconciliation was important and
valuable--that simply getting Turks and Armenians to interact as human
beings seemed like a major step," Toumani felt increasingly frustrated
with the intolerance she encountered and with her own prejudices,
which "seemed stronger than ever." She came to believe that the term
"genocide" is no more than a clinical label that dilutes the visceral
reality of the past.
This remarkable memoir serves as a moving examination of the complex
forces of ethnicity, nationality and history that shape one's sense of
self and foster, threaten or fray the fragile tapestry of community.
Pub Date: Nov. 4th, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9762-7
Page count: 304pp
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/meline-toumani/there-was-and-there-was-not/
November 15, 2014, Saturday
THERE WAS AND THERE WAS NOT
A Journey Through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond
by Meline Toumani
KIRKUS REVIEW
A young Armenian-American journalist examines her identity and personal history.
New York Times contributor Toumani grew up hating Turkey. She knew
that between 1915 and 1923, nearly 1 million Armenians were massacred
and another 1 million deported from the Ottoman Empire, a surge of
violence that punctuated generations of oppression. She also knew that
the Armenian diaspora was obsessed with world recognition of the
conflict as genocide, a term that Turkey vehemently rejected. Even 100
years later, many Armenians are still ferocious in their abhorrence of
all things Turkish. But for Toumani, that hatred had come "to feel
like a chokehold, a call to conformity," and she wanted "to understand
how history, identity, my clan and my feeling of obligation to it, had
defined me." That search took her to Turkey, where she lived for more
than two years, interviewing writers, historians, students, professors
and activists about the fraught relationship of Turks to ethnic
minorities. Cautious about admitting that she was Armenian, Toumani
discovered that once she did, "the distance from 'Nice to meet you' to
the words 'so-called genocide' was sometimes less than two minutes
long." Many Turks claimed to have Armenian friends, but stereotypes
were deeply entrenched: Armenians were greedy, shifty and duplicitous.
The murder of an outspoken journalist who worked to find common ground
between Turks and Armenians brought political hatreds into stark view.
Arriving with the idea that "soft reconciliation was important and
valuable--that simply getting Turks and Armenians to interact as human
beings seemed like a major step," Toumani felt increasingly frustrated
with the intolerance she encountered and with her own prejudices,
which "seemed stronger than ever." She came to believe that the term
"genocide" is no more than a clinical label that dilutes the visceral
reality of the past.
This remarkable memoir serves as a moving examination of the complex
forces of ethnicity, nationality and history that shape one's sense of
self and foster, threaten or fray the fragile tapestry of community.
Pub Date: Nov. 4th, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9762-7
Page count: 304pp
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/meline-toumani/there-was-and-there-was-not/