Taner Akçam, Istanbul, My Bridge

This volume opens with a poem by the poet, memoirist, and scholar Peter Balakian. “Coming to Istanbul” deals with the shock and trauma of returning to the city where his father was born and his prosperous family lived before they were driven into exile by the Ottoman government during the Armenian Genocide. Haunted absence and the intersecting violence of the present define the poem. His personal essay about his friendship with Akçam pays tribute to his friend’s courage and the important role he played as a bridge across the Turkish-Armenian divide.