Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières (2004) — A novel set in a small Anatolian town during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish War of Independence, following the intermingled lives of Greeks, Turks, and Armenians. It gives a visceral sense of what the ethnic violence of that period meant for ordinary people in southeastern Anatolia, and puts the ruins and restored churches of Diyarbakır in a sharper human context.
The Armenians: A People in Exile by David Marshall Lang (1981) — A concise history of the Armenians from antiquity to the diaspora, useful background for understanding St Giragos Church and the broader Armenian history embedded in the architecture of Diyarbakır and the surrounding region.
The Kurdish Question and the 2003 Iraqi War by Michael Gunter (2005) — A political analysis that provides context for the Kurdish cultural and political landscape centred on Diyarbakır. Understanding the recent history of the Kurdish southeast makes the city — its murals, its memorial spaces, and its ongoing reconstruction — considerably more legible to outside visitors.