Dmetri Kakmi

Mother Land is the story of a boy’s love for his homeland, and of a childhood marked by the hostility between two cultures.

Kakmi’s memoir offers a vivid portrayal of Greek-Turkish life on the Aegean island of Bozcaada, in all its beauty, poverty, and ignorance. At the age of eight, Dimitri is forced to confront the political realities that spell the end for the Greeks of Anatolia. Nature and his parents’ volatile marriage are his only teachers as he tries to make sense of his changing world.

As the boy struggles to reconcile the different cultures within himself, he is involved in acts of violence that erode his innocence and sense of humanity. Finally, the family flees the island. Years later, the adult Dimitri returns in the hope of making peace with his past.