The Pencere (“window” in Turkish) Publishing House has been publishing Turkish translations of important books that deal with the “Armenian Question.” Some say this is evidence that any type of book can be published in Turkey today, and that the will to overcome certain obstacles is present and strong. Pencere’s latest publication is Agop Hacikyan and Jean-Yves Soucy’s novel, A Summer without Dawn (Gunes O Yaz Hic Dogmadi). The book’s English and French versions were published in 2000, and a number of translations soon followed. Now, the Pencere Publishing House is publishing Zekiye Hasancebi’s translation of the novel from its German translation. It must have been a hefty task, considering the novel is about 700 pages long.
This is “a deportation novel,” the book’s subtitle informs us. It is a book that will allow Turkish readers to come face to face with the experiences of an Armenian family living in the dark, final days of the Ottoman Empire, albeit in a fictional setting. The inside flap of the book reads: “A Summer without Dawn is an epic family saga that unfolds against the true story of the Armenians deported from the Ottoman Empire and massacred during the First World War.” In the novel, an Armenian journalist, Vartan Balian, is separated from his wife, Maro, and son, Tomas. Their reunion comes four years later, during which they bear witness and live the tragedies of war, through prison, deportation, and a Turkish harem.
Hacikyan, the Istanbul-born Canadian Armenian author, historian, and professor of literature, began his literary career at 17 writing poetry, and later branching out to linguistics, literature, and novels. He is a talented and productive writer, authoring over 20 books over three decades. Together with Kapriel Basmadjian, Edouard Franchouki, and Nourhan Ouzounian, he published the two volumes of the English-language anthologies “The Heritage of Armenian Literature,” a collection of Armenian literary masterpieces. Hacikyan has also translated Vahram Dadrian’s To the Desert: Pages from My Diary, an eyewitness account of the events of 1915. In an interview with his daughter, Talleen Hacikyan, the author said: “Armenians are busy to have the genocide recognized by Turkey but after that tragic period there were so many unjust, cruel incidents against the minorities of the new republic. If I wrote a documentary about that particular period only scholars, students, and interested parties would read them. So I fused these events into a narrative, a love story between Tomas and Anya.” This narrative became his latest novel, The Lamppost Diary (October 2009). Hopefully, in the near future, its Turkish translation will also be published by Pencere.
A Summer without Dawn’s other author, Jean-Yves Soucy, is a Canadian intellectual and novelist. He is the author of numerous books, among them Family Secrets: The Dionne Quintuplets’ Autobiography (1996), Amen (1988), Erica (1984), and Creatures of the Chase (1979). From 1985-86, he was president of the Administrative Counsel of the Montreal Book Fare (Salon du Livre de Montreal). Since 1989, he has been a member and vice-president of the Executive Committee for Public Lending Rights Commission (Commission du Droit de Prêt Public). Soucy and Hacikyan teamed up on the urgings of the latter’s publisher, who wanted Hacikyan to write a long epic novel in French. “The publisher explained that I could write my part, and Jean-Yves could collaborate by adding his part,” explained Hacikyan in the aforementioned interview. “At first he did not know very much about the Armenian-Turkish conflict and history, but then he read a lot about the subject. I left him very free. I had never written anything with four hands.”
Recently, Pencere appeared on our radar when it published the “Blue Book”—James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee’s The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916: Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon by Viscount Bryce [uncensored edition], edited and with an introduction by Ara Sarafian (Osmanli Imparatorlugu’nda Ermenilere Yapilan Muamele, 1915-1916 Vikont Bryce’in Fallodon Vikontu Grey’e Sundugu Belgeler. “Pencere” also published Armenian historian Nikolai Hovhannesian’s Armenian Genocide. Pencere, it seems, is quite the befitting name for this publishing company—a “window” offering a glimpse into the world of “the other.”
Nanore Barsoumian is a staff writer for the Armenian Weekly.
Nanore Barsoumian
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iyi günler ben adıyaman türkiye den bu mesajı size yazıyorum. şimdi eşimin babaannesi bir ermeni imiş ve adı da meryem imiş. eşimin babaannesi aslen malatya da yaşadıklarını babasının bir doktor olduğunu kendilerine papa ailesi dendiğini göç sırasında kendisinin adıyaman lı biri tarafından eş olarak alındığını, erkek kardeşlerinin ise amerika nın kaliforniya eyaletine gittiğini söylemiş. şimdi sizden ricam, ya böyle parçalanmış ailelerin akrabalarını aradıkları bir dernek veya onun gibi bir sitede bana yardımcı olmanız. bana yardımcı olursanız sevinirim şimdiden çok teşekkür ederim