Twelve Years Away from Constantinople, 1896-1908 (My Memoirs), Yervant Odian (softcover)

For well over a century, Twelve Years Away from Constantinople has endured as a unique candid and entertaining account of Armenian émigré life during the reign of Abdul Hamid II. Best known for his trenchant satire, its extraordinarily cosmopolitan author, Yervant Odian, was and remains one of the most recognizable and active figures of his generation. His multifaceted career as a journalist and civil society leader embedded him deeply in Ottoman Armenian intellectual circles. Odian’s twelve-year journey in these remarkably unabashed memoirs, translated by Nanor Kebranian, begins with the 1896 massacre of Armenians in Constantinople, when Odian, like many of his contemporaries, fled for safer shores. His wanderings led him to Greece, Egypt, France, Austria, and England, where he witnessed and withstood the numerous hardships plaguing Armenian living in those countries.