Thea Halo (born 1941) is an American writer and painter of

Assyrian Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyri ...

and

Pontic Greek Pontic Greek ( pnt, Ποντιακόν λαλίαν, or ; el, Ποντιακή διάλεκτος, ; tr, Rumca) is a variety of Modern Greek indigenous to the Pontus region on the southern shores of the Black Sea, northeastern Anatolia, ...

heritage. Born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, she is the 8th child of Abraham and Sano Halo (original name Euthemia "Themia",

: Ευθυμία). Thea began writing poetry and short-stories in 1992 and in 2000 she published her book '' Not Even My Name'' (), the memoir of her mother who belonged to Turkey's

minority, natives of the Black Sea coast region of Turkey known as

Pontus Pontus or Pontos may refer to: * Short Latin name for the Pontus Euxinus, the Greek name for the Black Sea (aka the Euxine sea) * Pontus (mythology), a sea god in Greek mythology * Pontus (region), on the southern coast of the Black Sea, in modern ...

. Sano "Themia" Halo was a recipient of the New York State Governor's Award for excellence in honor of Women's History Month, "Celebrating Women of Courage and Vision." '' Not Even My Name'' is the story of Sano (Themia) Halo's survival of the death march, at age ten, during the

Greek genocide The Greek genocide (, ''Genoktonia ton Ellinon''), which included the Pontic genocide, was the systematic killing of the Christian Ottoman Greek population of Anatolia which was carried out mainly during World War I and its aftermath (1914� ...

that killed her family. The title refers to Themia being renamed to Sano by an Assyrian family who could not pronounce her Greek name, after they took her in as a servant during the Greek genocide. The story is told by her daughter Thea, and includes their mother-daughter pilgrimage to

, Turkey in search of Sano's home seventy years after her exile.

References

External links

Not Even My Name
Web site. Assyrian writers Living people 1941 births Writers from New York City American writers of Greek descent American women short story writers American short story writers American women poets 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers Pontic Greeks 21st-century American women {{US-poet-1940s-stub