The book is the history of the city of Bayindiri in Western Asia Minor near Smyrna in the early 20th century, based on written and oral narratives of refugees, general historical information about the era, and personal memories preserved by their children from the second and third generations.
There are also photographs, documents, letters, while the difficult situations, the public and private collapse with the feelings, hesitations, and unexpressed grief are carefully touched upon.
The 23 chapters of the small volume shed light on dramatic or humorous aspects of life, dark (persecutions, economic disasters, the drama of the Exodus) or happy (festivals, excursions, successful agreements, summer work, and theatrical performances). The book balances between historical essay, personal memories, the effort of interpretation and understanding of events, and the narration of a collective trauma that, however, each one experienced personally.
It narrates a way of life between 1900 and 1922, in the critical years of tumultuous changes for the populations of Asia Minor, at the peak of persecutions, wars, and disasters. The clouds were gathering threateningly, yet the narratives exude a calm, happy, almost cheerful life, as the refugees later wanted to remember it.
As one reads the pages of the book, they discover together with the author the games of memory and oblivion, the paradise they remembered, and the hell they tried to forget along with the deep unexpressed trauma that passed on to the next generations.