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Echoes from the Dead Zone

new published book from Yannis Papadakis .

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/18504 ... eader-link

book is translated in to Turkish as well .

Istanbul Bilgi University Publishing recently published the book ‘Echoes from the Dead Zone’ by Yannis Papadakis, a Greek Cypriot anthropologist. The book, published in English and Greek in the past, will now be available in Turkish. Istanbul Bilgi University Publishing should be congratulated for their efforts as this book was prepared with great finesse and gives Turkish and Turkish Cypriot readers the opportunity to meet a Greek Cypriot academic and author. Considering the rarity of such ‘meetings’ it is easy to understand the significance of this act.
Yannis Papadakis authors his book as a storyteller with two identities. He observes, thinks, conducts inner dialogues and questions sometimes as a Greek Cypriot, and sometimes as an anthropologist. In his quest to get to know Turkey and Turkish Cypriots, he first acts ‘subjectively’ and ‘with prejudice’, and afterwards he assesses events and people as an anthropologist. When he comes back from this journey, he becomes a much different ‘Greek Cypriot’ then the person he was before. This journey makes the author ‘wiser’ and gives him the opportunity to know himself better. As in all journeys, the ‘hidden objective’ of this journey is to know one’s self.
In this book, Yannis Papadakis sets off for a journey in the divided country of Cyprus between various ‘hearsay and facts’. He begins the journey with the facts and rumours of his own people; however when he is confronted by other ‘facts’ and rumours, his preconceptions and ‘facts’ are shaken as he does not hesitate to delve deeper inside these ‘facts’. Eventually his identity begins to split. He goes to Istanbul to learn about Turkey but he cannot do his duty conferred on him by the average Greek Cypriot identity and he is unable to ‘hate the Turks’. In a similar way, he spends some time in North Cyprus, gets to know Turkish Cypriots and listens to their tales. Then he starts to view them in a different way than his own society’s perspective. Clearly, the author goes through a metamorphosis. At first he is disturbed by this change. The metamorphosing author knows very well that his communication with his own society will be distorted and other voices will echo in his head. However, we understand from the inner dialogues spread throughout the book that he sometimes speaks like a Turkish Cypriot or is afraid that he may speak like a Turkish Cypriot. Despite this, Papadakis continues the journey and his personality split progresses during this journey which he started out as a Greek Cypriot.
As his questioning anthropologic studies progress and his journey extends within this context, he sets out to create a form of ‘memory bridge’ in the land of people who refrain from exchanging their memories. Some time later this fact forces him to become a ‘person without a country’ and he finds himself, the object of his research, right in the middle of the ‘Dead Zone’. This is also indicative of the fact that the author is starting to ‘free himself’, and saving himself from ‘one dimensional facts’. The author finds the courage to free himself and starts to enjoy it. He starts to travel between the two societies in the land of Cyprus where Remembering and Forgetting policies are applied selectively and he starts to remind the people of what they have ‘forgotten’. He accepts this as his job. Meanwhile, he discovers ‘embarrassment’. The author is embarrassed bythe fact that these societies, in all their comfort, live so many lies as ‘truth’ and they are not ashamed at all. This new ‘occupation’ embraced by the author as an intellectual, not a Greek Cypriot, and the ‘over the border ethical sensitivity’ helps his split identity to become one again.
Yannis Papadakis knows that this journey of his is a tiresome as well as a ‘dirty job’. Embracing ‘other people’s facts’, showing ‘one’s own lies’ makes him ‘dirty’. These things distance him from his ‘pure and clean’ and therefore ‘comforting’ identity. The author uses the metaphor of ‘sewers’ and points out the challenges of his journey: “Was there a way to cross the border? I had learnt that this could only be possible through an unused part of the sewers. This was a difficult trip. One first had to overcome the underground filth of his own past, then the filth of the chaos brought about by both sides and then the hidden filth created by the other side.”
Yannis Papadakis risked ‘getting dirty’, continued his journey to its completion and finalised a beautiful work. If you wish to take on a similar journey, enter the book ‘Notes from the Dead Zone’. Papadakis took the necessary ‘measures’ for your journey to be easier than his and wrote a readable part of literature. The only thing that awaits you at the end of the journey is the possibility of growing wiser. Don’t know if this should be feared?

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