The Bastard of Istanbul (Review by Nouritza Matossian)

At last a contemporary novel tackles the greatest taboo in modern Turkey: official denial of the 1915 Armenian genocide – the 20th century’s first holocaust – and its legacy.

Elif Shafak spent her childhood abroad, free from the Turkish school force-feeding of nationalist history that robbed generations of a balanced perspective. Years later, teaching in Arizona, she and other Turkish intellectuals became involved in a new civil-rights movement which put recognition of the genocide at its centre.

A prolific author in a magic realist genre, in The Bastard of Istanbul Shafak offers a social saga about two families, one in Istanbul and the other in Arizona as they discover shocking truths about themselves. They expose the rifts and lies of an establishment in denial of the country’s multi-ethnic past.

Shafak wrote the book in an optimistic era when the government courted candidature to the European Union and many of the estimated two million grandchildren of Armenians who were orphaned, abducted and converted to Islam “came out”.

For smashing old taboos, 60 writers and publishers received death threats and charges of “insulting Turkishness” – most prominently Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk, and later Shafak. Both were acquitted. Turkey closed ranks around its darlings. But for Armenians, as ever, there was no salvation. Outspoken liberal Armenian editor, Hrant Dink, was thrown to the wolves. Shafak’s novel was conceived before his assassination in January this year.

This makes Shafak’s voice all the more remarkable. For Turkish readers she provides vital missing historical background – although discrimination against present-day Armenians in Turkey is not portrayed. “Being a bastard is less about having no father than having no past...” says Asya, the “bastard” of the title. She shares her lack of past with the author, who grew up without her father, and with Turkey, whose history has been falsified.

Asya’s cursed family is all female, except for the favoured brother who skipped it to America and got entangled with an Armenian family mirroring the Turkish one. When his stepdaughter Armanoush unexpectedly visits Istanbul, the two girls unearth much common heritage as well as divergences.

Hidden historical events are revealed, notably the assassination of the Armenian intelligentsia on April 24, 1915, which heralded the Ottoman government’s mass extermination of at least one and a half million.

Armanoush speaks out. Outworn denialist arguments ricochet, exploding in a cafe-fight: “It was a time of war.” “Turks suffered too.” The most touching passages are based on first-hand survivor accounts – for example, that of Grandmother Shushan, who abandons her Muslim child in Turkey to join her family in San Francisco.

Satirical and gutsy, Shafak brings her unique spark of humorous parody to all who wish to understand the modern Turkish psyche, or gain insight into the political and ethical turmoil on Europe’s threshold.

Nouritza Matossian is author of ‘Black Angel: A Life of Arshile Gorky’ (Chatto and Windus).