A collection of fictional short stories dealing with real events in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) during the dying days of the Ottoman Empire. These stories are based on fictional characters who were participants and witnesses to actual events that occurred in Asia Minor between 1900 and 1923. Their stories detail massacres, ethnic cleansing, genocide, expulsion, uprooting, war, nationalism, xenophobia, discrimination and the involvement of great powers in Asia Minor. It’s an attempt to give voice to the history of the below movement – that is, ordinary people who are mostly ignored in historical accounts. These fictional characters kept personal diaries recording momentous historical events they experienced. It attempts to use historical imagination to recreate the past by putting oneself in the place of fictional characters and describing events unfolding before their eyes and capturing their immediate emotions.
