Sami Kent on stories from Turkey’s first hundred years
Sami Kent on “The Endless Country: A Personal Journey Through Turkey’s First Hundred Years” (Picador)
Start by recounting your family background and how you learned about Turkey growing up in the UK.
I grew up in London, or around London, where there is a very big Turkish community but not one that I necessarily grew up in. My dad is Turkish and grew up in Ankara. At 19 he left 1970s Turkey and all its chaos to study computer engineering at Birmingham University. In his first week there he met a working-class girl from Peterborough, which - if people don't know – is in the least exotic part of England, East Anglia. He told her in the first week that he loved her and he would marry her, and somehow that turned out to be true. So that's my parents who have now been together for 40 or 50 years.
I grew up in a family that was proudly Turkish but not hugely linked to a great number of Turks. For example, my father - baba, as I call him - didn't teach us much Turkish beyond the words for ordering food and for abusing football referees. Turkey for us was this place where we would go every year; when I say “us” it's because I have two older brothers. Every year we went on holiday and it was just magical, partly because I didn't spend a lot of time with my dad growing up and any time with your dad when you're a small boy is kind of special. I loved our time there, swimming in the Aegean. My first memory is of bobbing up and down in the sea with my mum after I was thrown from a motorboat with a life jacket. I was about three years old. So my first memories and some of my happiest childhood memories are in Turkey, whether on the coast or visiting my family in Istanbul.
That was Turkey for us for a long time: It was this really beloved place that we were slightly at a distance from. It was also a setting where endless stories used to happen, because my dad is an endless storyteller. As I grew up, I found out that many of these stories weren't really true. But it gave Turkey, for me, this kind of romance and excitement. Also I was very conscious that it was part of me and I was very proud of it.
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