Echoes of the Past, Voices of the Present

Remembering the events of the Hamidian Massacres, academic and poet Dr Tamara Wilson, together with authors Andrew Finkel (The Adventure of the Second Wife: The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and the Ottoman Sultan, 2024) and Maureen Freely (My Blue Peninsula, 2023), will join us for an inspiring evening of readings and conversation.

Between 1894 and 1896, widespread massacres of Armenians and other Christian communities took place across the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II, leaving hundreds of thousands dead or displaced. The violence profoundly reshaped communities across the empire and beyond, with its legacies carried through displacement, diaspora, and intergenerational memory.

Through prose and verse, the writers explore how literature can open a path into difficult histories and trace their reverberations across generations.

Following readings from their work, they will discuss the challenges and possibilities of narrativising the past. How do fiction and poetry engage with history, memory, displacement, and silence? How can literary imagination bring the past into dialogue with the present?