Birds Without Wings

I'm currently "reading" (I use the term for simplicity although I'm actually listening on audiobook) Louis de Berniere's Birds Without Wings, a novel which tells of the lives of people living in a small town in South-West Anatolia in the early 20th Century. In parallel it tells the story of Ataturk. It's long (19 CDs on Audiobook from the library) but entertaining. de Bernieres seems to portray an authentic portrait of the end of the Ottoman empire and the creation of the Turkish nation. There was surprisingly little depth about the exchange of populations, but in general there's quite a bit of history mixed in with the fairly light stories.

There was a fair mix of original Turkish & Greek, and for the most part it is very well read.