CHILDREN OF WAR
AHMET YORULMAZ (tr. Paula Darwish)
Neem Tree Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$12.95 trade paper, available now
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Publisher Says: Inspired by the intimate diaries of a refugee family, Children of War is an evocative novel that seamlessly intertwines the allure, complexity, and scars of Crete's storied past to tell the intimate tale of an ordinary man caught in the vortex of extraordinary times.
For fifteen generations, Hassanakis's family has called Crete home, and he's always seen himself as a true Cretan. Yet, as the world around him is engulfed in the chaos of collapsing empires and simmering conflicts, Hassanakis finds himself at the crossroads of identity. In the face of escalating ethnic violence, his family's flight to Chania becomes a poignant journey of survival.
Amid the turmoil, Hassanakis weaves new roots, donning distinctive attire that earns him the nickname 'Hassan the mirror'. As World War I reaches its crescendo and the Turkish War of Independence rages on, a profound romance ignites between him and the graceful Hüsniye. But soon the prospect of being uprooted to a foreign Turkey becomes a chilling reality. Can he fathom leaving behind the life he's built for a land where he's a stranger?
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: A translation of a book published long enough ago to have embarrassing tropes, the main character's obsession with women's breasts as an example. Deciding whom to marry on such a trivial thing is...unappealing any time, unacceptable to say out loud today. (Thank goodness.)
In the US, and I think the "West" more broadly, we are not taught about the HUGE traumas of the Aegean world after the rump of the Ottoman Empire fell after the Great War. (That's the name most at the time would've used.) The always-simmering ethnic and religious hatreds were, as the cork of Imperial tyranny was popped, bubbling and frothing out. They are still bubbling and frothing, the human need to hate is still prominent in daily life...if I need a citation for you to accept that as a foundational truth, let's stick to Greeks and Turks: Cyprus.
The issue will not go away. I assert the root of this in the modern world is calculated. I think it's imperialist, capitalist, and driven by mentally ill levels of greed.
That said, go look at why I think these things. This book contains elements of them all...the PoV character's there because of imperialism, the expulsion is not a little tinged by greed, the character's eventual success is measured by greed's favorite yardstick: money, financial success. The "nativist' argument that either presupposes land ownership is a thing...like the land cares about anything about *who* is using and/or abusing it...or says the claim of this or that person is or is not properly able to live in a place is operating within the system that perpetuates hatred and division for profit.
Humans love to hate more than anything else, go look at all of history, so people like Author Yorulmaz and Translator Darwish do their level-best to personalize the consequences of that appalling truth. It was modestly successful here. I was never really all the way into the story, finding Hassanakis more or less a convenience to hang a narrative upon not a fully realized character. I think this came from a marketing decision I question:this is a novella, and a decent-enough one, not in any way a novel.
I think that setting of expectations would've raised my rating. As it is, I recommend thinking past the novel designation, thus enjoying the story told more.
