Rebel Land: Unraveling the Riddle of History in a Turkish Town(ISBN=9780143118848)

　　"A finely written, brave, and very personal book." -Orhan Pamuk 　　
　　In 2001, Christopher de Bellaigue wrote a story for The New York Review of Books, in which he briefly discussed the killing and deportation of half a million Armenians from Turkey in 1915. These massacres, he suggested, were best understood as part of the struggles that attended the end of the Ottoman Empire. Upon publication, the Review was besieged with letters asserting that this was not war but genocide. How had he gotten it so wrong? De Bellaigue set out for Turkey's troubled southeast to discover what really happened. What emerged is both an intellectual detective story and a reckoning with memory and identity. Rebel Land unravels the enigma of the Turkish twentieth century-a time that contains the death of an empire, the founding of a nation, and the near extinction of a people.

　　Christopher De Bellaigue has worked as a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times, The Economist, and The New York Review of Books, among others. His previous book, In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs, was a finalist for the 2004 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. He divides his time between Tehran and London.

Dramatis Personae
Map of Turkey and Her Neighbours
Prologue: The Mirror
Map of the District of Varto
An Infinity of Shapes
Map of the Town of Varto
Rebel Land
The Massacre of Newala Ask
Great Man
The Death of Mehmet Serif Firat
Gumgum!
Scab
The Siege of Varto
Deep State
The Captain's Victory
Epilogue: The Silver Belt
Acknowledgements
Bibliography