Une vie sur le Bosphore

by Irfan Orga

« Les mémoires les plus importants du XXe siècle ! »The Independent
Irfan Orga naît dans une famille prospère, au crépuscule de l'Empire ottoman. Sa mère, une jeune beauté mariée à treize ans, vit retirée du monde, comme il convient aux femmes turques de sa condition. Sa grand-mère paternelle règne sur la famille, en autocrate excentrique et capricieuse, déterminée à préserver coûte que coûte les traditions de son milieu. Lorsqu'éclate la Première Guerre mondiale, la famille est forcée de s'adapter à une existence jusqu'alors inconnue. Le Sultan est renversé, la Turquie devient une république et leur univers feutré bascule. C'est dans ce contexte tourmenté, émaillé de violences, de ruptures et d'actes de courage, qu'Irfan Orga construit son existence, jusqu'à son arrivée à Londres, en 1942. Sept ans plus tard, il écrit le récit de sa vie sur le Bosphore.



Traduit de l'anglais par Johan-Frédérik Hel Guedj

520 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2011

About the author

Irfan Orga was a Turkish fighter pilot, staff officer, and author. He published books on many areas of Turkish life, cookery, and history, as well as a biography of Atatürk, and his own autobiography (Portrait of a Turkish Family). He also wrote two children’s books. Orga was born into a wealthy Ottoman Turkish family in Istanbul. Soon World War I broke and his life was changed forever. Orga witnessed the atrocities and hardships of war. His novels display the common everyday life of an Ottoman Turkish family. It was during his adulthood in 1942, when he met a young married Norman-Irish woman, Margaret Veronyca, while he was on a three-year posting in England from the Turkish air force. However, the Turkish Air Force did not approve of his living with a foreign woman in England, and Orga was stripped of his rank and forced out of the air force. After Veronyca’s divorce had been finalised in 1948, they married. While his wife began working her way up the hierarchy of publishing, Orga pursued several menial jobs. He also began writing and publishing books.