Scan barcode
A review by alstrath
The Gold Letter by Lena Manta
4.0
This was the first book that I've read featuring the refugee crisis in Europe and detailing the dvisions between Turk and Greek in Constantinople.
Chrysafenia Karapanos also known as Fenia inherits her late mother's childhood home from her grandfather who kicked her mother out of the house when she was 17. She knows nothing about her mother's family and in the renovating of the house she discovers letters - the oldest almost 90 years old, the others a bit more recent. Together with these letters and her mother's cousin she pieces together the history of a family she didn't know.
Her family's root lay in Constantinople as Greeks living amongst the Turks in a very turbulent time in their history. This is a riveting story spanning over four generations of women from one family who were linked with three generations of Kouyoumdzis men.
It covers a portion of History that was unknown to me but so vividly described that it felt as if I was right there amidst it all. What the Kouyoumdzis family and hundreds of others like them lived through humbled a person and those scenes have not left my thoughts.
A beautiful ending with a far bit left unsaid, but the reader can fill in the blanks for themselves.
It was not always easy to read especially the depiction of the violence of the attacks by the Turks on the Greeks on the streets of Constantinople, but it was a brilliant translation whose words carried all the power and poignancy that the story deserves.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me the chance to read this book.
Chrysafenia Karapanos also known as Fenia inherits her late mother's childhood home from her grandfather who kicked her mother out of the house when she was 17. She knows nothing about her mother's family and in the renovating of the house she discovers letters - the oldest almost 90 years old, the others a bit more recent. Together with these letters and her mother's cousin she pieces together the history of a family she didn't know.
Her family's root lay in Constantinople as Greeks living amongst the Turks in a very turbulent time in their history. This is a riveting story spanning over four generations of women from one family who were linked with three generations of Kouyoumdzis men.
It covers a portion of History that was unknown to me but so vividly described that it felt as if I was right there amidst it all. What the Kouyoumdzis family and hundreds of others like them lived through humbled a person and those scenes have not left my thoughts.
A beautiful ending with a far bit left unsaid, but the reader can fill in the blanks for themselves.
It was not always easy to read especially the depiction of the violence of the attacks by the Turks on the Greeks on the streets of Constantinople, but it was a brilliant translation whose words carried all the power and poignancy that the story deserves.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me the chance to read this book.