LOVE IN ALEPPO
LOVE IN ALEPPO is the second book in a trilogy; a sweeping epic spanning four generations, three wars and countless love stories as a family forced into exile by genocide search for their new home. It is the story of my family, beginning in the Levant in 1895, moving on through the Middle East and onto London and the US today. Imagine Birds Without Wings fly to Middlesex with My Brilliant Friend.
Following their expulsion from the Ottoman Empire at the end of Seamstress,
Love in Aleppo picks up the story with the family rebuilding their lives in Syria.
It is 1923 and all remaining Armenians have been exiled from the newly formed Republic of Turkey. We rejoin the Agha Boghos family in the dusty khans of Aleppo where they have settled as refugees. Khatoun, ‘the Seamstress’ saves them from poverty yet again, this time sewing for cabaret artistes, whores and brides to be. Alice inherits her mother’s Singer sewing machine and meets the man that will become her husband, Haygaz Avakian; a womanizer and adventurer who adores her but cannot keep his eyes from roaming. Around them, the Middle East has been divided by the allies and people are searching for their new home. Haygaz promptly impregnates his new wife and runs off to Addis Abbaba before scandal sends him home again. He lurches from one adventure to the other, finally settling in Cyprus; a successful shirtmaker who parties with King Farouk of Egypt and the Governor of Cyprus while indulging in increasing infidelities that eventually drive Alice to religion. She spends her latter life watching the news in Turkish and nodding at the signals of approaching Armageddon.
In this book I investigate the process of rebuilding a life. The dichotomy of trying to fit in while retaining a sense of cultural identity.
The full manuscript is a tale of love, loss and redemption in the diaspora, told by four generations of women, each becoming the guardian angel of the next. From the gay tailor who plays Go and eats Russian chocolates on a rooftop in Syria, to the pasha’s wife who can only conceive when dressed as a whore and the shy accountant with the polished shoes who takes up arms, the women unravel their tale populated with a cast of hundreds.
With cabaret artistes, resistance fighters, fortune tellers, genocide survivors, rapists, shadows, angels and pets, the women’s lives unfold, some in minute detail, others as blunt letters, memories, conversations and thoughts.
Love in Aleppo details love, death, drug addiction, transgenderism, a stint in jail, drug busts, treachery and war as the family rebuild their lives in the diaspora.
It is mixed genre- the best description being Fictoir; part memoir, part fiction, full of lies, misquotes and dead people, but all historically accurate.
Following their expulsion from the Ottoman Empire at the end of Seamstress,
Love in Aleppo picks up the story with the family rebuilding their lives in Syria.
It is 1923 and all remaining Armenians have been exiled from the newly formed Republic of Turkey. We rejoin the Agha Boghos family in the dusty khans of Aleppo where they have settled as refugees. Khatoun, ‘the Seamstress’ saves them from poverty yet again, this time sewing for cabaret artistes, whores and brides to be. Alice inherits her mother’s Singer sewing machine and meets the man that will become her husband, Haygaz Avakian; a womanizer and adventurer who adores her but cannot keep his eyes from roaming. Around them, the Middle East has been divided by the allies and people are searching for their new home. Haygaz promptly impregnates his new wife and runs off to Addis Abbaba before scandal sends him home again. He lurches from one adventure to the other, finally settling in Cyprus; a successful shirtmaker who parties with King Farouk of Egypt and the Governor of Cyprus while indulging in increasing infidelities that eventually drive Alice to religion. She spends her latter life watching the news in Turkish and nodding at the signals of approaching Armageddon.
In this book I investigate the process of rebuilding a life. The dichotomy of trying to fit in while retaining a sense of cultural identity.
The full manuscript is a tale of love, loss and redemption in the diaspora, told by four generations of women, each becoming the guardian angel of the next. From the gay tailor who plays Go and eats Russian chocolates on a rooftop in Syria, to the pasha’s wife who can only conceive when dressed as a whore and the shy accountant with the polished shoes who takes up arms, the women unravel their tale populated with a cast of hundreds.
With cabaret artistes, resistance fighters, fortune tellers, genocide survivors, rapists, shadows, angels and pets, the women’s lives unfold, some in minute detail, others as blunt letters, memories, conversations and thoughts.
Love in Aleppo details love, death, drug addiction, transgenderism, a stint in jail, drug busts, treachery and war as the family rebuild their lives in the diaspora.
It is mixed genre- the best description being Fictoir; part memoir, part fiction, full of lies, misquotes and dead people, but all historically accurate.
GALLERY