In 2015, Nemrud Kurt-Haninke, a young Assyrian born in Sweden, published the novel The Dead Teach the Living (Swedish title De döda lär de levande), a fact-based novel about the Assyrian genocide in Swedish. Released exactly 100 years after Seyfo, the book was his way of honoring the victims and preserving their stories for future generations.
The idea for the novel was born during his first visit to Assyria's Tur Abdin Region in 2014. Standing in his families ancestral village of Anhel, he began imagining a story connecting the generation of Seyfo with the descendants living in the diaspora.
The story moves between the days of genocide and modern-day Tur Abdin. In 1915, young Malke's search for his kidnapped sister takes him through the most significant places of the genocide. He witnesses the battle of Azakh, the defense of Iwardo, and the destruction of Midyat. In the parallel storyline, Nedro, a young Assyrian, travels from Europe to Tur Abdin in search of his roots, retracing the same paths once walked by the victims and survivors.
The novel received positive reviews in Sweden, where Kurt-Haninke was praised for combining historical facts with fiction. Last year, the book was translated into German and launched during an event in Augsburg, a town in southern Germany with a significant Assyrian community.
Earlier this year, it also reached the Austrian capital Vienna where the author held a lecture and book signing. The German edition has sold out, but rather than a second edition, the focus is now shifted to the English-speaking world. This summer, The Dead Teach the Living will be launched in the Netherlands, marking the first step of the English-editions journey.
”The big Assyrian community in Enschede makes it the perfect place to start in Europe,” Kurt-Haninke says. ”I want people to embrace the book with both their heads and their hearts. It’s an emotional and an intellectual journey. Readers get to both learn something and let themselves be enmeshed in the dramaturgi.”
Kurt-Haninke is currently in dialogue with organizations in both Australia and the United States regarding potential launches there as well.
The young author has published three novels so far and worked as a journalist for the Swedish National Television and other national news outlets in Sweden.
”The pen has always been my greatest tool, a sword with which I fight for our nation”, he says. ”My father has always been my role model for his way of writing as well as his passion for our nation. I am convinced that Assyria will always survive as long as we teach our children to keep it alive. Every time we sing our songs, share our food or speak our language, our nation lives on. It's our way of telling the world we're still alive.”
He reveals that he has begun to write lyrics in Western Assyrian. "Creativity has always been my true passion. When writing a book, you create a world. In my case, a world I long for.”
That world is Assyria's Tur Abdin Region, where he traces his lineage and keeps revisiting. Last year, his grandmother was laid to rest in Anhel – the same village where the idea for the novel was first born. Despite its tragic history where the echoes of Seyfo still linger, he describes Tur Abdin as ”heaven on earth”.
”It is only a coincidence that I am the first in hundreds of generations to be born outside Assyria. I’ve been to some of the world’s greatest cities. For me, there is nothing like Tur Abdin. It is my treasure. It is where my heart lies.”
The Dead Teach the Living launches in the Assyrian Mesopotamian Association Enschede (AMVE) on the 9th of August. Check the associations social media account for updates about the event.
