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Kirkus Reviews
Nov 3 2014
Meline Toumani
Author of THERE WAS AND THERE WAS NOT
Interviewed by Alexia Nader on November 3, 2014
Meline Toumani photographed by Mark Smith.
When Meline Toumani, an Armenian-American journalist, first decided to
move to Turkey in 2007, she had a firm plan for the book she wanted to
write. She would explain the way Turks viewed the Armenian genocide of
1915 to an Armenian audience and a general one. She would show how
she, an Armenian, could engage in meaningful dialogue with Turks about
the genocide, as opposed to the demonization of Turks that she
perceived as ubiquitous in the discussions of the Armenian diaspora.
Her book would be so revelatory and yet diplomatic that it would bring
the Armenians and Turks to an understanding of the genocide they
hadn't yet reached. But once in Turkey, problems with the basic idea
for Toumani's book emerged, and she slowly realized that her lofty
diplomatic visions were not going to be realized.
`The book I wanted to write was not real,' Toumani states bluntly over
the phone. `And I didn't want to write the book that I ended up
writing because the message was a lot more grim. So a lot of time
passes where I sat there and wrestled with the material and figured
out, `What's left?' ' The conversations and experiences she had to
work with belied her intended narrative for the book that would become
There Was And There Was Not: A Journey Through Hate and Possibility in
Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond. In Turkey, talking to a wide variety of
people, she realized that Turks still discriminated against Armenians
living in the country. As for the history of the Armenian genocide,
few people really wanted to talk about it at all, much less sincerely.
Toumani couldn't find common ground with most people she talked to.
And as it turns out, she didn't have the patience she thought she did
for talking to people with a widely different take on the genocide
than her own. Her mental health started to deteriorate from the stress
of living and reporting in the country. But she stayed there far
longer than she had expected. For two years, she waded into the
complications and problems inherent in the idea of confronting her
ethnic group's painful past in a country that doesn't recognize it and
tried to figure out what to do with the feelings of frustration and
rage that accompanied her throughout her stay.
Part travelogue, part memoir and part journalism gone awry, There Was
And There Was Not is a bricolage of forms and genres'and not a neat
one. This seems honest, a way Toumani could faithfully portray the
strain between estrangement and belonging that she felt going deep
into what would be considered enemy territory by the Armenian
diaspora. `All that time and turning around of the material, both the
ideas and the actual paragraphs and chapters, led me to the
realization that this whole thing is a process for claiming a sense of
individuality for myself,' Toumani explains. `My own process reveals
to me¦the tension between belonging to the group and finding an
identity for yourself that isn't dependent on the group.'
Continue reading >
Toumani's book is also not very diplomatic. Pick any chapter and
you'll find it will likely irritate people on one side of the
Armenian-Turkish divide or the other. There are several places in the
book that are deeply critical of a Turkish point of view of the
Armenian genocide, the current state of Armenians in Turkey or, above
all, Turkish nationalism. The most notable of these is a charged
interview with the Turkish historian Yusuf HalaçoÄ?lu, who has perhaps
done the most to try to conceal the history of the Armenian genocide.
HalaçoÄ?lu is quoted condescendingly explaining why Turkey doesn't have
a problem with Armenians. Near the end of the chapter, Toumani tries
to explain her profound frustration in the interview, writing,
`Certainty is always more powerful than doubt.'
But Toumani turns her critical eye on herself and her side, as it
were, which makes the book much richer than it would be if it had just
focused on what her interviewees in Turkey thought. That last line in
the HalaçoÄ?lu chapter is followed by, `I had known that once as a
child.' Toumani is referring to an extremist strain in the Armenian
diaspora, which she experienced in Armenian summer camps and youth
groups in the United States during her childhood. `It's really
important to me that Armenians who are interested in the book get to
the end,' Toumani says. `Because otherwise I think they'll completely
misunderstand; they might be more challenged by the early parts of the
book than the later parts of the book. Likewise with Turks, the
opposite is true.' After reading Toumani's book, you're with her when
it comes to this hope, because you see how, even though the process of
untangling the knots in her ethnic identity and past was painful for
the author, it was ultimately liberating.
Toumani's book may not have a lot of the qualities the author hoped
for, but it is ambitious. Though Toumani couldn't write that book
about the possibilities of reconciliation, she ended up writing a book
expressive of equally lofty ideas'the possibilities for creating space
for individual freedom in the midst of such an entrenched conflict and
the necessity of this individual freedom to truly participate in a
community, shaped by a difficult past, in a constructive way. At the
end of the book she asks this question of her Armenian community: `If
we move on from genocide recognition, with or without Turkey's olive
branch, what holds us together then?'
Alexia Nader is a writer living in San Francisco and a senior editor
of The Brooklyn Quarterly.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/meline-toumani/
Nov 3 2014
Meline Toumani
Author of THERE WAS AND THERE WAS NOT
Interviewed by Alexia Nader on November 3, 2014
Meline Toumani photographed by Mark Smith.
When Meline Toumani, an Armenian-American journalist, first decided to
move to Turkey in 2007, she had a firm plan for the book she wanted to
write. She would explain the way Turks viewed the Armenian genocide of
1915 to an Armenian audience and a general one. She would show how
she, an Armenian, could engage in meaningful dialogue with Turks about
the genocide, as opposed to the demonization of Turks that she
perceived as ubiquitous in the discussions of the Armenian diaspora.
Her book would be so revelatory and yet diplomatic that it would bring
the Armenians and Turks to an understanding of the genocide they
hadn't yet reached. But once in Turkey, problems with the basic idea
for Toumani's book emerged, and she slowly realized that her lofty
diplomatic visions were not going to be realized.
`The book I wanted to write was not real,' Toumani states bluntly over
the phone. `And I didn't want to write the book that I ended up
writing because the message was a lot more grim. So a lot of time
passes where I sat there and wrestled with the material and figured
out, `What's left?' ' The conversations and experiences she had to
work with belied her intended narrative for the book that would become
There Was And There Was Not: A Journey Through Hate and Possibility in
Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond. In Turkey, talking to a wide variety of
people, she realized that Turks still discriminated against Armenians
living in the country. As for the history of the Armenian genocide,
few people really wanted to talk about it at all, much less sincerely.
Toumani couldn't find common ground with most people she talked to.
And as it turns out, she didn't have the patience she thought she did
for talking to people with a widely different take on the genocide
than her own. Her mental health started to deteriorate from the stress
of living and reporting in the country. But she stayed there far
longer than she had expected. For two years, she waded into the
complications and problems inherent in the idea of confronting her
ethnic group's painful past in a country that doesn't recognize it and
tried to figure out what to do with the feelings of frustration and
rage that accompanied her throughout her stay.
Part travelogue, part memoir and part journalism gone awry, There Was
And There Was Not is a bricolage of forms and genres'and not a neat
one. This seems honest, a way Toumani could faithfully portray the
strain between estrangement and belonging that she felt going deep
into what would be considered enemy territory by the Armenian
diaspora. `All that time and turning around of the material, both the
ideas and the actual paragraphs and chapters, led me to the
realization that this whole thing is a process for claiming a sense of
individuality for myself,' Toumani explains. `My own process reveals
to me¦the tension between belonging to the group and finding an
identity for yourself that isn't dependent on the group.'
Continue reading >
Toumani's book is also not very diplomatic. Pick any chapter and
you'll find it will likely irritate people on one side of the
Armenian-Turkish divide or the other. There are several places in the
book that are deeply critical of a Turkish point of view of the
Armenian genocide, the current state of Armenians in Turkey or, above
all, Turkish nationalism. The most notable of these is a charged
interview with the Turkish historian Yusuf HalaçoÄ?lu, who has perhaps
done the most to try to conceal the history of the Armenian genocide.
HalaçoÄ?lu is quoted condescendingly explaining why Turkey doesn't have
a problem with Armenians. Near the end of the chapter, Toumani tries
to explain her profound frustration in the interview, writing,
`Certainty is always more powerful than doubt.'
But Toumani turns her critical eye on herself and her side, as it
were, which makes the book much richer than it would be if it had just
focused on what her interviewees in Turkey thought. That last line in
the HalaçoÄ?lu chapter is followed by, `I had known that once as a
child.' Toumani is referring to an extremist strain in the Armenian
diaspora, which she experienced in Armenian summer camps and youth
groups in the United States during her childhood. `It's really
important to me that Armenians who are interested in the book get to
the end,' Toumani says. `Because otherwise I think they'll completely
misunderstand; they might be more challenged by the early parts of the
book than the later parts of the book. Likewise with Turks, the
opposite is true.' After reading Toumani's book, you're with her when
it comes to this hope, because you see how, even though the process of
untangling the knots in her ethnic identity and past was painful for
the author, it was ultimately liberating.
Toumani's book may not have a lot of the qualities the author hoped
for, but it is ambitious. Though Toumani couldn't write that book
about the possibilities of reconciliation, she ended up writing a book
expressive of equally lofty ideas'the possibilities for creating space
for individual freedom in the midst of such an entrenched conflict and
the necessity of this individual freedom to truly participate in a
community, shaped by a difficult past, in a constructive way. At the
end of the book she asks this question of her Armenian community: `If
we move on from genocide recognition, with or without Turkey's olive
branch, what holds us together then?'
Alexia Nader is a writer living in San Francisco and a senior editor
of The Brooklyn Quarterly.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/meline-toumani/