Letters from Turkey: 1939-1946

By Georgianna Mathew Maynard

When Georgianna Maynard went to Turkey in 1939 with her husband, Dick Maynard, she expected romance but found reality. The expected five year stay was extended to seven with the outbreak of World War... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0918986966
• ISBN13: 9780918986962
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures of the University of Chicago
• Length: 298 Pages

Customer Reviews

Letters from Tarsus

This is a compilation of the letters Georgianna Maynard sent from Turkey to her parents in the U.S., mostly during World War II. Despite the stark contrasts between the cultures and the living conditions in the U.S. and the 1940s' Turkey, the author was quite nonjudgmental and objective in her letters. She appears to have adapted to the Turkish culture and the customs and learned the language quickly. Moreover, even though the author and her husband were actually Christian missionaries, her occasional sarcastic remarks about the holy sites they visited in Jerusalem and the lack of criticism of Islam in her letters suggest that she was quite open-minded about religion. The stories of the hardships the Maynards endured as they struggled to run the American College in Tarsus, the annual train trips to Beirut, and the frequent picnics in the mountains around Tarsus make the book enjoyable, especially because even the worst incidents were relayed with a touch of humor. There are also several pages of interesting black & white photographs of Beirut, Tarsus, Istanbul & other places in Turkey. I should, however, note that one photograph, whose caption reads "A view across the Bosporus from the European side of Istanbul", actually shows the Knights' Castle in Bodrum!