My Grandmother
By Fani Papageorgiou

FT
Published: June 7 2008 03:00

My Grandmother

by Fethiye Ã?etin

translated by Maureen Freely

Verso £12.99

160 pages

FT Bookshop price: £10.39

In 1915, the author’s Armenian grandmother, Heranus, was a little girl
forced on a death march with others from her village. The men were
taken away by the gendarmes, never to return; some women drowned their
children and then themselves in the river. Those who could no longer
walk were killed with bayonets. A corporal on horseback snatched
Heranus from her mother and galloped off to raise her as his Muslim
Turk daughter, renaming her Seher.

In her sober, heartbreaking memoir, Ã?etin tells her grandmother’s story
and how she helped her find relatives who had emigrated to America.
Heranus’ uncom- plaining nature casts a horrifying light on the
atrocities committed on a million and a half Armenians.

Maureen Freely’s introduction is lucid and her translation – like her
renditions of Orhan Pamuk’s books – is fluid and elegant, amplifying
the merits of this earnest memoir.

Fani Papageorgiou