Portrait of a Turkish family

It is summer time, when all of us have more time to relax in the sun with a good book for company. Reading a good story also helps time at the airport or on the plane pass quickly. So I thought you would enjoy some tips for books about Turkey. Last time I focused on social change in the period just before and just after the War of Independence. So I wanted to draw your attention to some books that bring this period of history to life.

Not a boring textbook, but true-life stories. Rather than reading pages of dry facts, the memories of someone who lived through the period seem so much more accessible and easy to read. I love social history when we can see it through the eyes of those who experienced it. I enjoy talking with elderly people and hearing their life stories. From times a century ago, the closest I can get to this is to read the memories committed to paper by those with a talent for storytelling and a story to tell.

You will find “A Portrait of a Turkish Family” a warm and tragic remembrance of Orga’s childhood -- a touching, moving evocation of the charms of a world lost forever; the world of servants, comfort and of cloistered women and small children. Women of this social class mainly stayed at home in the Ottoman era, leaving their homes only with relatives and completely veiled. Small children were happily spoiled. Orga adapted to change easily and after embracing the Turkish Republic, he then decided to embrace even more -- the world -- and moved to London to become a writer.

The book “İstanbul Households: Marriage, Family and Fertility” (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time, paperback) by Alan Duben and Cem Behar is very resourceful and also makes interesting reading. The authors’ attention was caught by the striking juxtaposition of a few demographic figures for Turkey of the 1930s and 1940s. It is a great resource book on the social history of marriage, family and population in İstanbul during the turbulent period of transition in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It retails for only $40.00. (I use “only” ironically: If you have a great free public library, make use of it.)

Erendiz Atasu in her book “The Other Side of the Mountain” describes her experience in living in two worlds: England and Turkey. I love any fiction I can find set in Turkey, and this covers Turkish life between 1920s and 1950s. I love the style of writing -- the interweaving of an earlier story with a contemporary one works really well. The price is right!

“A Turkish Tapestry” by Shirin Devrim is another book in the same vein, telling the family history of the author, whose close family included a grand vizier to the sultan, and a poet and artist who became known as the Halikarnas Balıkçisi (the fisherman of Halicarnassus -- that is, Bodrum). Fascinating for its inside revelations on important characters from recent Turkish history, the tale is spell-binding.

For an alternative point of view on Old İstanbul, this time of the ‘50s and ‘60s, read Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk’s “İstanbul: Memories and the City.” This is also a memoir of childhood and youth, but it is less sentimental and instead absorbed with eccentric aspects of İstanbul’s near-past.

Another fascinating book on social change in Turkey is “The Caravan Moves On: Three Weeks Among Turkish Nomads.” By the same author as “A Portrait of a Turkish Lady,” it takes on an entirely different form. Orga describes the trip he took to the south of Turkey in search of the nomadic Yürük tribe, which was still living in significant numbers in the Karadağ Mountains in the 1950s. As you read this book you will realize the transition Turkey experienced moving into the modern age.

I would love to hear from you about your favorite books on Turkish social history. Happy summer reading!