Book description
An engaging and impassioned look at Turkey's identity crisis What is
the meaning of love and death in a remote, forgotten, impossibly
conflicted part of the world? In Rebel Land the acclaimed author and
journalist Christopher de Bellaigue journeys to Turkey's inhospitable
eastern provinces to find out. Immersing himself in the achingly
beautiful district of Varto, a place left behind in Turkey's march to
modernity, medieval in its attachment to race and religious sect, he
explores the violent history of conflict between Turks, Kurds and
Armenians, and the maelstrom, of emotion and memories, that defines its
inhabitants even today. The result is a compellingly personal account of
one man's search into the past, as de Bellaigue, mistrusted by all he
meets, and particularly by the secret agents of the State, applies his
investigative flair and fluent Turkish to unlock jealously-guarded
taboos and hold humanity's excesses up to the light of a very modern
sensibility. An engaging and impassioned look at Turkey's identity
crisis What is the meaning of love and death in a remote, forgotten,
impossibly conflicted part of the world? In Rebel Land the acclaimed
author and journalist Christopher de Bellaigue journeys to Turkey's
inhospitable eastern provinces to find out. Immersing himself in the
achingly beautiful district of Varto, a place left behind in Turkey's
march to modernity, medieval in its attachment to race and religious
sect, he explores the violent history of conflict between Turks, Kurds
and Armenians, and the maelstrom, of emotion and memories, that defines
its inhabitants even today. The result is a compellingly personal
account of one man's search into the past, as de Bellaigue, mistrusted
by all he meets, and particularly by the secret agents of the State,
applies his investigative flair and fluent Turkish to unlock
jealously-guarded taboos and hold humanity's excesses up to the light of
a very modern sensibility.
