"Gurci, The Daughter of Ararat" is a gateway into the silenced history of a people. Originally published in Turkish under the title "Benim Adım Gurci", this documentary novel now reaches international readers in English translation, preserving the raw intimacy and historical weight of its source.
At its heart lies the remarkable life of a Kurdish woman named Gurci, born in 1919 in a mountain cave beneath the shadow of Mount Ararat. Though illiterate, Gurci possessed a prodigious memory, through which she orally preserved and transmitted the traumatic events and cultural memory of her era. Her narrative offers more than personal recollections; it is a vivid, unfiltered lens into the collective consciousness of a society caught between collapse and survival.
The novel traces a historical arc that begins with the chaotic Kaça-Kaç (the great flight and exodus) of 1919, passes through the sweeping upheaval of the Ararat Rebellion (1926-1930), and delves deep into the semi-nomadic lifeways of Kurdish tribal communities. It brings to light the lived realities of forced marriages, the resilience of women in silence, exile, tribal conflict, and the existential struggles of a people navigating the ruptures of empire and modern statehood.
Gurci's testimony does not merely recount events; it reveals how state violence, shifting borders, and questions of identity were experienced at the most human level. The novel walks a delicate line between documentary fidelity and literary narrative, creating a deeply layered and emotionally resonant work. Through its unadorned but lyrical prose, it reconstructs a forgotten world with rare dignity and grace.
The inclusion of more than sixty original photographs elevates the book beyond a literary project, transforming it into a powerful archive of cultural and historical memory. These images do not merely illustrate; they bear witness, offering visual continuity to voices long excluded from official histories.
"Gurci, The Daughter of Ararat" is, at once, a work of documentary fiction, oral history, and cultural archaeology. It holds particular significance for readers and scholars in the fields of Kurdish literature, gender studies, oral tradition, memory studies, and the sociology of displacement. Rooted in meticulous fieldwork and years of oral documentation, Mücahit Özden Hun's work stands as a literary bridge between Turkish and English-speaking audiences, and between individual memory and collective history.
This is not merely a chronicle of a rebellion, it is a meditation on loss, resistance, womanhood, and the quiet endurance of a people. Through Gurci, the forgotten voice of a daughter becomes the collective memory of a silenced nation.