Revised Edition of Edgarian’s Bestselling ‘Rise the Euphrates’ Published to Mark Centennial

Narrative Library recently announced the release of the 20th anniversary edition of Carol Edgarian’s critically acclaimed bestselling first novel, Rise the Euphrates, revised with an introduction by the author. The publication coincides with the Centennial of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. When Rise the Euphrates was published 20 years ago, the Chicago Tribune called it “a beautiful and generous book” and named it the best debut of the year. The book went on to receive the 1994 Armenian National Committee Freedom Award.

Set in our time, Rise the Euphrates reaches back to 1915 Armenia when 9-year-old Casard watches the Turks slaughter her family and hundreds of other Armenians. On a death march through the desert to the Euphrates River, the child witnesses her mother’s death and experiences a betrayal so profound that she forgets her name.
Casard immigrates to America and puts the unspeakable past behind her; yet as the years pass, she infuses her only daughter, Araxie, with a legacy of anger and shame. Araxie willfully marries outside the clan, making her husband and their children odar—outsiders. It falls to the next generation, Casard’s granddaughter, to heal the family.

Seta Loon, the novel’s lyrical narrator, is the one upon whom both mother and grandmother pin their pain and hope, their regrets and dreams. “The daughter assumes what is unfinished in her mother’s life,” Seta learns. “The unanswered questions become her work.” Caught between the generations, between American and Armenian cultures in her Connecticut town, Seta confronts an even fiercer division: the one within herself. Seta’s remarkable song, and the wisdom she gains that frees the next generation and restores dignity and meaning to her family’s past, are Carol Edgarian’s stunningly original and groundbreaking triumph in Rise the Euphrates.
Rise the Euphrates is available for purchase in the Narrative Store, on Amazon, and in bookstores everywhere (Ingram, ISBN 978-0-9851807-4-4).

About Carol Edgarian

Writer, editor, and publisher Carol Edgarian is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Three Stages of Amazement and the international bestselling novel Rise the Euphrates. Her articles and essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, NPR, and W, among others, and she is co-editor of the popular collection drawn from great writers’ diaries, The Writer’s Life: Intimate Thoughts on Work, Love, Inspiration, and Fame. In 2003, she co-founded Narrative (www.NarrativeMagazine.com), the leading digital platform for fiction, poetry, interviews, and art, publishing more than 300 artists each year. A graduate of Stanford University, she lives with her family in San Francisco.

For more information visit, www.CarolEdgarian.com or follow Edgarian on Twitter @caroledgarian.

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Guest Contributor

Guest contributions to the Armenian Weekly are informative articles or press releases written and submitted by members of the community.

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