Dance of the Banished

St. John’s Kilmarnock school

Today I had the pleasure of revisiting St. John’s Kilmarnock School in Breslau ON. I met librarian Carey Gallagher (middle) two decades ago when she was a teacher and I was the writer-in-residence for a year. Back then, I met with every class at least once but spent much time encouraging aspiring writers. I still keep in touch with some of them. Today’s session was very neat because it was the first time that I met in person with students since the spring of 2020. I’ve done a ton of virtual visits but it’s just not the same. Today’s group were 10th grade History and English classes — could it be more perfect? Discussed writing about victims of atrocities in a respectful way, how to do research on topics that have been ignored and suppressed, and why risking failure is the only way forward. My favourite question was: What do you consider your best book? My answer? Dance of the Banished, which I feel is very much under-rated, but also the story is so very relevant right now. In Turkey there is a monumentally important election going on and Erdogan, who is a Putin-wannabe is finally effectively being challenged by a combined opposition led by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, whose heritage is Alevi.

And then icing on the cake: Jean Mills, a writer I very much admire, came to sit in on the session. She’s on the right, holding up her newest novel.

Marking the 100th anniversary of when WWI internment ended

Marsha Skrypuch at Armenian Community Centre of Cambridge

DanceOfTheBanished_HR_RGB1

Based on true events, a compelling story of love and hope published on the 100th anniversary of World War I. .

DanceOfTheBanished_HR_RGB1 Ali and his fiancée Zeynep dream about leaving their home in Anatolia and building a new life together in Canada. But their homeland is controlled by the Turkish government, which is on the brink of war with Britain and Russia. And although Ali finds passage to Canada to work, he is forced to leave Zeynep behind until he can earn enough to bring her out to join him.

When the First World War breaks out and Canada joins Britain, Ali is declared an enemy alien. Unable to convince his captors that he is a refugee from an oppressive regime, he is thrown in an internment camp where he must count himself lucky to have a roof over his head and food to eat.

Meanwhile, Zeynep is a horrified witness to the suffering of her Christian Armenian neighbours under the Young Turk revolutionary forces. Caught in a country that is destroying its own people, she is determined to save a precious few. But if her plan succeeds, will Zeynep still find a way to cross the ocean to search out Ali? And if she does, will he still be waiting for her?
Continue reading “Dance of the Banished”

Dance of the Banished selected for The White Raven 2015!

I am THRILLED that Dance of the Banished is one of three Canadian books selected for this prestigious list of 200 international books.

#WRlist2015

Here’s more:

A Selection of International Children’s and Youth Literature

English / Canada

Dance of the banished

Skrypuch, Marsha Forchuk (text)
Toronto, Ontario: Pajama Press, 2014. –
231 p.
ISBN 978-1-927485-65-1

World War I – Canada – Internment camp – Alevi Kurds – Armenian Genocide – Refugee – Fictitious diary

Renowned Ukrainian-Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch has written a number of books about Canadian internment camps. Her latest YA novel again returns to this little-known topic. Set in Anatolia and Canada from 1913 to 1917, the story follows a teenage couple who are forced to go their separate ways until they are finally reunited years later. At the beginning of World War I, Ali seizes the opportunity to seek work in Canada, but is soon thrown into an internment camp for Enemy Aliens. Zeynep is left behind in their Anatolian home village, where Christian Armenians and Alevi Kurds – both minority groups within the Ottoman Empire – live peacefully side by side. When the country is shaken by revolution and war, the young Alevi girl is determined to do her utmost to save her friends from the Armenian Genocide. Told in diary form and letters from two points of view, this story recounts the horrors of World War I, but also documents people’s great compassion and courage in dangerous times. (Age: 14+)

Dance of the Banished BookDragon review

This review made my day!

The year is 1913. Zeynap and Ali are teenage lovers in Anatolia (once Asia Minor, now modern Turkey) who part with a lingering sense of bitterness: Ali’s impending departure breaks their promise of escaping their village together. Feeling betrayed, Zeynap turns away: “I refuse to be your betrothed, never knowing when, or even if, you’ll come back.”

Ali will not give up hope of reunion: before he leaves, Ali presents Zeynap with identical journals: “While we are apart, keep this journal for me and I’ll write in the other for you … That way, we will still be together.” In return, Zeynap places her blue evil-eye bead over his head, a cherished momentum that has kept her safe since she was a baby. “I’ll always love you, but I will not wait for you,” she adds.

The Great War arrives in 1914, further separating the lovers. In Canada, Ali is sent to a prison camp for enemy aliens; Canada and Turkey are on opposite sides of the conflagration, and Anatolia is claimed by Turkey. At home in Anatolia, Zeynap bears witnesses to the genocide that obliterates over a million Armenian lives; her humanity and ingenuity make her an unlikely hero; her journal intended for Ali becomes a historical document of international importance.

Although the story is fictional, “it is based on real historical events,” award-winning Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch writes in her ending “Author’s Note.” What happens to the lovers, their families, their homeland, demands and deserves far more attention. Both Zeynap and Ali are Alevi Kurds, an ethnic minority about which is little known in the West. They are Kurdish, not Turkish; they are not Muslim, they are Alevi, “a 6,000 year-old religion that originated in Anatolia. Over the centuries Alevism has incorporated aspects of other religions,” Skrypuch explains.

Already the author of five titles “set during the Armenian Genocide,” Skrypuch elucidates how “in all that writing and research, [she] completely missed an outstanding instance of bravery: the rescue of 40,000 Armenians by the Alevi Kurds of the Dersim Mountains.” Five years earlier, Skrypuch learned about a hundred “enemy aliens” living in her hometown of Brantford, Ontario, who were rounded up in the middle of the night on false charges, jailed, and sent to prison camps.

“These men were victims of shameful wartime hysteria directed at foreigners, yet they had come to Canada because of its reputation for freedom and tolerance.” Listed as Turkish, the men turned out to be Alevi Kurds. And so Skrypuch’s Dance began. The result is an eye-opening, significant literary and historical gift to readers, young and old.

Sharon Gashgarian’s stunning fiber artwork inspired by Dance of the Banished

Leslie Leach, thank you for going to the library and taking these great detailed photos of Sharon’s interpretation of Pascal Milelli’s painting from the cover of Dance of the Banished. Beautiful!!!

Writing YA books about the Armenian Genocide

From this interview.

Interview with Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch: Dance of the Banished and the Armenian Genocide

Posted on April 23rd, 2015 by pajamapress

On April 24, 2015, Armenians around the world will mark the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, a systematic campaign by Turkish leaders in the Ottoman Empire to remove the empire’s Christian Armenian population. As evidenced by recent headlines, the subject is controversial today because the Turkish government denies that these deportations and killings can be labelled “genocide.” Continue reading “Writing YA books about the Armenian Genocide”

April 21: Worldwide Reading in commemoration of the Armenian Genocide

It poured rain and there was even some hail as I lugged my books plus a large object in a garbage bag into the Brantford Public Library. As I was drying out and setting up, Sharon Gashgarian also came in with a mystery object wrapped in plastic. Paula Thomlison, librarian extraordinaire, got us each an easel and we propped up our items, then hid them behind babushkas.

People began to come in, from Brantford, Cambridge, Burlington, Toronto … Soon, Paula had to get more chairs. It is a lovely thing when a presentation needs more chairs.

This presentation was to commemorate those writers who had been killed for speaking out about the Armenian Genocide. It was happening on April 21 all over the world. In Canada, the Montreal Armenian community was presenting at the exact same time as I was.

I read the passage from Dance of the Banished when 800 prominent Armenians were loaded into oxcarts used for garbage and taken out of Harput. Hours later, the oxcarts came back, bloodied and empty.

I then read an excerpt from a Danish missionary’s memoir recounting the eye-witness testimony of one man who escaped that massacre and made it back to the mission. After the reading, Victoria Bailey asked if I could show her the book that I had just read from. It turned out that one of her own ancestors had been given refuge at that Danish missionary’s orphanage, the Bird’s Nest. It was an emotional connection.

Next, I turned the floor over to Sharon Gashgarian, who, with much emotion, spoke of how she was affected by the painting that graces the cover of Dance of the Banished.

With permission from both me and the artist, Pascal Milelli, Sharon created a fabric artwork inspired by Pascal’s art. I unveiled his original and she unveiled her fabric art. Hers also included an inscription of “I remember” in Armenian, Ukrainian, English and French.

The library is displaying Sharon’s beautiful art piece in their window for the rest of April in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Within the window too, are some of my books an also other books about the Armenian Genocide.

A moving evening for very many reasons.

Thank you Penny Draper and the National Reading Campaign for this wonderful review!

Posted October 10, 2014 & filed under Children’s Book Reviews

In Dance of the Banished, acclaimed author, Marsha Skrypuch, once again breathes life into a piece of history with passionate clarity. Published on the one hundredth anniversary of World War I, Dance of the Banished tells the dual stories of alien internment in Canada and the Armenian Genocide in Turkey, both from an unusual perspective.

Zeynep, fierce and bold, and Ali, caring and principled, live in the same village in Anatolia and plan to marry. Unexpectedly, Ali is sent to Canada and Zeynep is left behind. Each writes in a journal for the other, but as war comes to both countries it is unlikely their words will ever be shared. Still, they keep on. Zeynep writes an eyewitness account of the genocide from the point of view of the Alevi Kurds, telling a little known side of this tragic story. Ali, in turn, gives an accounting of life in an internment camp in, surprisingly, Kapuskasing. For each, the journal entries are a coping mechanism, a way to bear witness to the atrocities of war and ultimately, to bring justice.

Skrypuch’s compelling characters give an authentic voice to this well researched story. It is definitely a book for adults as well as teens. And although it is a story of war it includes moments of great joy, making it much more than a tragedy. Whether together in Turkey or alone in banishment, both Zeynep and Ali are able to lose themselves when they dance. Their troubles are momentarily forgotten in an ecstasy of whirling that reminds us of the cyclical nature of human events. Preserving the past, as Skrypuch does so well, is part of that cycle.

Dance of the Banished
By Marsha Skrypuch
978-1-927485-65-1
Pajama Press
August 22, 2014
288 pp
Ages 12+

Penny Draper lives in Victoria, British Columbia. She is the author of the award-winning “Disaster Strikes!” series, historical fiction that places young protagonists at the centre of real Canadian disasters.

Logo-NoType

The National Reading Campaign publishes children’s book reviews under a Creative Commons License. This review is entirely free to reproduce and republish online and in print. Credit must be given to the reviewer and the National Reading Campaign. Reviews can be edited for brevity only. Contact Us for more information.

Tag: Dance of the Banished