Aline Oanesian, an American of Armenian descent wrote this novel in response to a story told to her by her grandmother when Aline was a girl. Aline's grandmother's story was her experience during the Armenian Genocide. Her grandmother was largely silent but broke her silence this one time to Aline.
Aline has done a superb job of combining the pathos of the genocide with an intriguing modern fiction that brings the story to our times. Of course it's not easy to read of genocide but the novelistic gifts of the writer who moves the story between 1915 and the 21st century makes it a page turner. Armenians are tormented by Turkish refusal to admit that this genocide happened.
"The Armenian Genocide[a] (also known as the Armenian Holocaust)[12] was the systematic mass murder and expulsion of 1.5 million[note 2] ethnic Armenians carried out in Turkey and adjoining regions by the Ottoman government between 1914 and 1923.[13][14] The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested, and deported from Constantinople (now Istanbul) to the region of Angora (Ankara), 235 to 270 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, the majority of whom were eventually murdered.
The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases—the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly, and the infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian Desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre.[15] Most Armenian diaspora communities around the world came into being as a direct result of the genocide.[16]"
Wikipedia
I highly recommend this book.
Takk for alt,
Al
PS I'm back at Lisa's for a few days.
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