Contributed photos Sano Halo is presented to the President of Greece. From the left is Castas Govostis, publisher of the Greek edition of “Not Even My Name;” the president’s secretary, Marina Frangos, translator; Sano; Thea Halo; and the president. (Click for larger image)

Book by local author wins national and international acclaim

Book reading to be held this Saturday

By TOM KANE

LONG EDDY — Long Eddy resident Thea Halo will be reading from her widely acclaimed book, “Not Even My Name,” at the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance (DVAA) on Sunday, September 23 at 2:00 p.m.

Halo’s book, which was published last year by Picador Publishing, a division of St. Martin’s Press, is a memoir of her mother, Sano Halo. A Pontic Greek, Sano and her family were forced to leave their ancestral home between 1918 and 1922 by the Turkish Armies of Mustafa Kemal, later named Ataturk.

At the age of 15, her foster family sold her into marriage to a man 30 years her senior, who brought her to America.

The book follows Sano to America and relates how she bore 10 children. Sano was transformed from an innocent girl living an ancient way of life, to a nurturing mother and determined woman of the twentieth century.

Sano now lives in upstate New York and is 91 years old.

The book relates how the Turkish government systematically slaughtered almost three million of the Christian minorities—Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians—after WWI.

“Few books have related that horror story,” the author said. “The story is practically untouched in the history books.”

Halo, who is a painter and was an art director in New York City, has been traveling around the country reading and signing her book in bookstores. Recently, she was invited for a reading at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Early this year, Sano traveled with her daughter to Athens, where the President of Greece, Kostis Stefanopoulos, honored her. She was also presented in New York City with an award “celebrating women of courage and vision” by New York State Governor George Pataki.

Many Pontic Greeks died during the forced march, including Sano’s two sisters. Soon after the march, her mother and other sister died and later she lost contact with her father and brother, presumed dead.

	Contributed photo Sano Halo poses with her author-daughter, Thea. (Click for larger image)

The book begins as a sentimental journey in 1998 when the author takes her mother back to Turkey to find her village, Iodone.

It wasn’t there.

Everything was taken from Sano, even her name, a fact that the book title alludes to. The Syrian family that adopted her when she was 12 couldn’t pronounce her name, so they changed it from Themia to Sano.

The work has been translated to Greek and has undergone three reprints in that country.

The section of Turkey around the Pontic Mountains has been a Greek Christian community from the beginnings of Christianity. In the history and geography books, the land was called Asia Minor. It became Turkey when the Ottoman Turks took it over from the Byzantine Empire in the 14th century.

Halo, who wrote for The River Reporter as a correspondent a few years ago, is also a resident of Tribeca and lives a few blocks from the ravaged World Trade Center.

Her home was not affected, although she did not have access to it for several days last week.