ABSTRACT
The first decade of 21st-century Turkey started as a period where more and more authors of ethnic minority communities could record their experiences of discrimination in memory narratives. This was part of the global popularization of witness literature, the theme of the Nobel Centennial Symposia in 2001. This chapter assesses the genre of memoir as part of the larger body of memory literature by minority communities. As a nonfiction mode of knowing the self, memoir has been the primary means for articulating the experience of discrimination and redressing the collective amnesia concerning ethnic minorities. An example of testimonial literature, which endeavors to articulate minority voices comes from non-Muslim writers in Turkey. Their dawning artistic articulation in late 20th century was a breakthrough after almost a century of disconnection between Muslim and non-Muslim literatures. The surge of memory literature can be seen in the growing number of books recording ethnic lives and pasts.
