My Grandmother

"Yes, when it came out in 2004 this book really did cause a minor earthquake in Turkey , because it confronted Turks with the Armenians in their midst, both dead and alive. It’s an extraordinary story that broke the taboo in Turkey almost overnight, about the fact that so many people in Turkey had Armenian grandparents, or great-grandparents, who were the survivors as children of these horrific deportations in 1915, but who had been absorbed into Turkish society. Fethiye Cetin tells the story of how her grandmother – a very beloved figure – in her mid-sixties suddenly revealed in secret that she wasn’t the Turkish lady Seher, who her granddaughter believed her to be, but an Armenian called Heranus. Her parents were not her real parents but her adoptive parents, who’d picked her up from of deportation column in 1915 as the Armenians were being destroyed – and as most of her family were being destroyed. This was a secret that she had carried with her most of her life. “Every generation deals with this tragedy in a different way.” It is a double-story, both of Seher/Heranus telling her life story and her childhood story, and also of the granddaughter coming to this extraordinary recognition of who her grandmother really is. Her whole identity is turned upside-down and she seeks out the lost Armenian relatives of her grandmother. She did track them down, but sadly only after her grandmother had died. It’s a story on many levels and a story which challenged Turkey on many levels."

"That’s exactly right. It’s a very empathetic, straightforward read. It’s short. It gives an insight into the ethnic origins of Turkey today that no one has been talking about until very recently. A lot of Armenians were deported and a lot were massacred, but a lot also stayed behind in Turkish families. This book is about someone discovering, quite unexpectedly, that her grandmother is one of these people. She’s been a good Muslim all her life, because when Armenians joined these families, they became Muslims of Armenian heritage and culture, believing in Islam, but also making Armenian cakes on Armenian religious days. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . I have a number of friends who have discovered that their grandmothers were not what anyone thought they were. Muslim in culture and practice, but who had come from a very different place. It’s an aspect of Turkey that no one has wanted to talk about because of the idea that ‘We’re all Turks’ and ‘We’ll only be safe if we’re all the same.’ But suddenly people are discovering that it’s OK to be different. Perhaps we should admit that, in the east of Turkey, a lot of people are of mixed ancestry. The power of this book is the relationship between a granddaughter and a grandmother, and how the story suddenly spilled out. It’s been very well translated by Maureen Freely, which makes it an easy read. (Freely also translates Orhan Pamuk.) Some people have criticised her translations for making it too easy for people to read, but the fact is, she has made a very accessible book of it."