The Lighthouse Family by Firat Sunel, Translated to English from Turkish by Feyza Howell

Book: The Lighthouse Family
Author: Firat Sunel
Translated to English from Turkish by: Feyza Howell
Genre: Historical Fiction
Published in English By: Penguin in January 2024
Pages: 178
Recommended for: Age Group above 15

Other books by the Author: In the Shades of Weeping Willows(2011), Izmirili, My Last Love (2015)

Book Review: “Emptiness is the worst thing that could fill you.”

A short story of a family that revolves around displacement, loss, tragedies, war, and hope among all. The way it will make you smile and cry at places, the way it will make you think, and the way it will make you abhor the wars; that’s what is extraordinary about this book.

K’s father is a lighthouse keeper and thus it’s decided that his kids will take over this job one day, just that Illyas (K’s brother) is weak and suffering from an illness and Feriha (K’s sister) is a girl, so he is the only option to being a lighthouse keeper after his dad. But he struggles to choose between that or a city school. Guess what, the weak limbs of his brother and the strength of his mother & sister helped him choose the latter. Illyas learned all the lessons in the daylight when K was working in the fields, Feriha guarded the lighthouse at night, so they both could help him in going to school.

The exceptional thing about this story is, that this family was not directly affected by war, and yet their lives turned upside down in a single day, How? The story strongly delivers the message that war doesn’t have to come to your doorstep to affect you, that constantly living with the fear of what will happen is much greater than the fear itself, and that love & hope have a way of making its way through tiniest cracks and yet we spend all of our lives trying to get soaked by it. Ironically, it’s humanity only that gives and deprives us of that. 

Characters: The protagonist is an unnamed character K, Illyas (elder brother), Feriha (elder sister), Hanim Hala (Aunt), K's mother & father, Nana, Headman, Mr. Ethem, and Delphina.
Hanim Hala is old and has seen the loss of her son and brother in wars, she has bought the Mastic Tree’s sapling from the home they left years ago, planted it here, and now keeps chanting around it. Her character invokes the belongingness humans have of the place of their birth and childhood and how it's worse when you are forcefully displaced from it.

K's mother took him to Sazak, to visit her old broken house, and the way she behaved and talked about it amid the debris and ruins, made K realize the loss she never talks about but is filled up to her neck and often makes its way to her eyes. 

Feriha is the sister who has mothered K, he adores her, idolizes her, and gets angry when she gives her attention to someone else. Her character is being slammed against the shores of gender stereotypes, and yet she is the most powerful character in the book.
K's father is strict, his presence brings quiet and fear. His character surprised me when he reacted rather positively instead of being angry after discovering how they all conspired to send K to school. But in the second half, he bought out his real energy during the night of a storm near the skylight cave.

Plot Summary: On the top of the hill there is a Lighthouse, an acetylene tank, and a Cottage, in which there's a small family, away from the village. The father is the lighthouse keeper, assigned by the Government and they have fields in which the mother and K work. The mother is like all mothers, she prepares the best food from the least available, always chiding her husband for his temper, and protecting her kid's secrets. The eldest son Illyas has a heart problem and is weak, his life is fragile, the second child daughter Feriha wears the patched and torn trousers of her father, she is the boldest of them all, the youngest K is the next in line to be the lighthouse keeper, but he wants to go to the school. Hanim Hala is the aunt, old and disabled, always with her prayer beads and chantings. 
On a Saturday, when K came back from his Nana's house after finishing his Primary education with top marks, his mum doing chores, his siblings were fishing, his father went to hunt a seal that had been destroying the fence, and Hanim Hala on the sofa laying down. He expected a different reaction from what he received. The three siblings are often at the top section of the lighthouse tower, talking, laughing, and using binoculars to watch the ship returning to Chios Port from Lesbos, the captains of the ship look back through their binoculars and the kids wave at them.

On one of these days, Chios lights are not on, and a few days later a flash of orange tore through the darkness over Lesbos, and in a matter of just a few minutes, the whole Lesbos was on fire. German Aeroplanes bombarded Lesbos and captured both Lesbos and Chios. In the later events, K appeared for the school's entrance exam and was coming back happily after attempting it but a series of events turned all of their lives upside down. He kept trying to find their normal lives back, but there was no normal.

Years later, K fled from Istanbul to Germany because he was in trouble for writing controversial pieces. His sister was alone at the lighthouse and she chose to be that way, K visited her every now and then, she was alive but she stopped living a long time ago. K met Delphina in Germany and they both found the childhood of their homeland a binding factor and got married. The end is heart-wrenching, after running all his life when finally K decides to settle down with his beloved sister and Delphina, he finds out that people ripped apart by wars don't get extra time in life to make up for what they lost. 

About the Author: Firat Sunel born in 1966, is a Turkish Diplomat/Ambassador to India, Maldives, Bhutan, and Nepal. Out of his three published books, one is adapted into a series. His works are translated into Tamil, English, Kannada, and Malayalam. 

He graduated in Law from Istanbul University and completed his Master's in Law from a University in Germany. He is married with two children. He says that the 'Trauma of forced Migration is in our genes.'

About the Translator: Feyza Howell is a Literary Translator, an Interpreter of Public Agencies, and a Non-fiction writer. She is known for translating Non-Fiction (arts, culinary arts, history, etc) and Fiction. 

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