Un-Silencing the Past: A Juxtaposition of Personal and Political in Elif Shafak’s Novel, The Bastard of Istanbul

Tajamul Islam

doi:10.24113/ijellh.v10i2.11257

Abstract

This paper explores the thematic aspect of bastard and the alternative spaces present in the novel to show how Armenian genocide is addressed and unsilenced from the censorship of the State. The juxtaposition of the Armenian issue with the tribulations of ‘Kazanci’ family is argued as a metaphorical and personalised account of Armenian genocide. Such an engagement with the past has been made possible by bringing political and personal together in the form of a family in Istanbul and a family in America; one belonging to a Muslim majority and the other belonging to an Armenian religious minority.

Highlights

In the context of the sensitivity of the issue in Turkey, and the successive govt’s attempt to censor any discussion on it, this paper explores how Elif Shafak creates alternative spaces to engage with this question within the framework of art, and juxtaposes personal and political to create a personalised account of Armenian genocide in order to put this historical wrong in proper perspective
Elif Shafak writes in a separate section entitled “Dreaming in English” in her novel The Bastardof Istanbul: The Bastard of Istanbul is a novel that concentrates on an Armenian and a Turkish family and the unspoken atrocities of the past
The Young Turk leadership began to contemplate permanent solutions to the “Armenian problem” (The Fall of Ottomans 136). He further writes about the demography of Armenians who were a minority in every province of the Ottoman Empire at that time: Armenians were concentrated in three areas of particular sensitivity during the First World War

Summary

Introduction

In the context of the sensitivity of the issue in Turkey, and the successive govt’s attempt to censor any discussion on it, this paper explores how Elif Shafak creates alternative spaces to engage with this question within the framework of art, and juxtaposes personal and political to create a personalised account of Armenian genocide in order to put this historical wrong in proper perspective. A character in The Bastard of Istanbul writes in response to Armenian massacre that Turkish national history is based on censorship.

Results

Conclusion