Years ago, I was put on trial for “insulting Turkishness” following the publication of my novel The Bastard of Istanbul. My book told the story of two families, one Turkish and one Armenian-American. The former, based in Istanbul and the latter, based in San Francisco. It was also a story about friendship, sisterhood, emotional connections across borders, and the power of empathy.
The novel explored the importance of not only family stories but also family silences. It delved into ancestral trauma, inherited pain, minority memory and collective amnesia. It tackled a subject that was, and still remains, a major taboo in my motherland: The Armenian massacres, deportations and genocide towards the end of the Ottoman Empire. How can we get to heal, individually and collectively; how can we learn from both the atrocities and the beauties of the past so as to hopefully build a better future together as humankind?
Literature is how we connect the heart and the mind, and bridge the gap between “us” and “them”.
It is also how we learn to unlearn, and remember what has been unfairly forgotten.
It came as a complete shock that the novel was immediately put on trial, and I was accused of “insulting Turkishness” under a constitutional article that had never before been applied to fiction writers. The prosecutor demanded a three-year prison sentence for me. The words of fictional characters in the novel were taken out of context and presented as “evidence” in the courtroom. As a result, it felt as though my fictional characters were also put on trial alongside myself. This surreal experience lasted over a year, during which time I faced vitriolic, incredibly mean attacks in the media branding me a “traitor”, accusing me of “betraying and not loving” my own culture and country. On the streets there were ultranationalist groups burning EU flags, spitting on my pictures.
I wish I could tell you that I remained completely calm and composed and very wise during this whole ordeal. The truth was quite the opposite. I was deeply shaken, constantly sad. I was not able to pull myself together for months, crying all the time.
An elderly relative, seeing the state I was in, said to me: “But my dear, why do you write about such difficult issues? Why can’t you choose something lighter—next time write about flowers, trees, and stars?”
A fig tree is the narrator in my novel The Island of Missing Trees.
The book, straddling Cyprus and England, explores difficult subjects, such as generational trauma, partition of a land, communal violence, the rise of hatred, tribalism and othering. It also tackles issues of belonging and non-belonging, immigration, displacement and exile, as well as the sorrow of losing home, losing a homeland.
But it is also a story about the resilience of love.
This is why the book is dedicated:
“To immigrants and exiles everywhere,
the uprooted, the re-rooted, the rootless,
and to the trees we left behind,
rooted in our memories.”
I have always been drawn to silenced, suppressed, and forgotten stories. The periphery rather than the centre. The unseen rather than the visible. Writers are not merely storytellers; we are also tellers of silence.
Being a novelist, particularly in countries where democracy is wounded, is akin to being a cultural and linguistic archaeologist. One must dig deep through layers of time and sediments of forgetting to unearth untold stories and suppressed narratives.
Literature brings the periphery to the centre, rehumanises those who have been dehumanised.
In the words of Victor Hugo, “to divinise is human, to humanise is divine.”
Over the years, during many travels, I have observed immigrant families on both sides of the Atlantic.
It is fascinating to see how different generations grapple with the dilemma of memory and amnesia and the question of inherited trauma.
The first generation—the elderly—are usually the ones who have endured the greatest hardships, including profound traumas. They have not forgotten the past; how could they forget it? Yet, they do not speak of it. It resides within them, locked behind their ribcages, all those unspoken words, unshared truths, and unforgotten memories. They do not even have the language to articulate it.
The second generation (broadly speaking) tends to show little interest in the past. Understandably, they need to be forward-looking, focused on the future. They must start from scratch, building a new life—tabula rasa—for themselves and their children.
The third (or sometimes fourth) generation, however, often becomes sincerely curious about ancestral memories and family silences. They are the ones who are ready to ask the most difficult questions. They are the memory-keepers. This is why you may sometimes encounter a young person carrying old memories.
In every family, there is at least one memory-keeper.
Writers and poets are the memory-keepers of their societies.
Like buried rivers, inherited traumas flow unseen beneath the structures we have carefully built, always threatening to overflow their banks. Unless we remember we cannot repair and what we cannot repair will keep resurfacing and coming back, again and again.
Just because we cannot see the past does not mean it is not alive.
This is what the fig tree, ficus carica, says in The Island of Missing Trees:
“…. loneliness is a human invention. Trees are never lonely. Humans think they know with certainty where their being ends and someone else's starts. With their roots tangled and caught up underground, linked to fungi and bacteria, trees harbour no such illusions. For us, everything is interconnected.”
Flowers, trees and stars….
Traumas, silences and stories….
Like fig trees, for writers and poets too, everything is interconnected.
And every week, these gems of wisdom drop in to my inbox and help me make sense of this crazy world, which is no mean feat. Thank you, Elif.
The Bastard of Istanbul was the first book l ever read of yours. It’s a wonderful book and I’ve since read all your books. When l heard that you were on trial for writing this book my heart went out to you, what kind of government treats a writer this way! Well one of my dear friends is of Armenian descent and l think is the memory keeper of her history so l am well informed about this. It’s terrible that countries have to erase a race of people. For what, power, land and money! We now see it happening in Gaza where another friend of mine comes from, it breaks my heart and l feel helpless and find it hard to find words for both these friends.
Your Fig Tree was my favourite character in The Island of Missing Trees so you see Elif you can use anything ( even a drop of water) to tell the story of different people. Thank you for doing so l love your books 🙏