‘Black Dog of Fate’ Published in France

Balakian to be part of Armenian Cultural Festival in France Oct. 16-21

Peter Balakian’s prize-winning memoir Black Dog of Fate has been published in French by the Metispresses and translated by M. Georges Festa. The publisher writes: “Black Dog of Fate by Peter Balakian brings together the powerful dimensions of a novel with a witness narration to create a new hybrid form of the memoir. At the time of its publication in the United States in 1997, Black Dog of Fate received unanimous critical acclaim. It was cited by the New York Times and by the Los Angeles Times as one of the Notable Books of the Year and in 2009 it was re-issued in a 10^thanniversary edition with two new chapters of which segments were published in The New York Times Magazine.”

Balakian will be part of the Festival Armenie-Armenies sponsored by France’s National Center for the Book. From Oct. 16-21, Balakian and about two dozen other Armenian writers, artists, and musicians from Armenia, Europe, the Middle East, South America, and the United States will tour France on the Orient Express and do events in various venues in Marseilles, Avignon, Valence, Lyon, and Paris.

The tour will begin in Marseilles on Sun., Oct. 16—at 339 Avenue du Prado at 6 p.m.—and continue with the following schedule: Oct. 16-17: Marseilles; Oct. 18: Avignon and Valence; Oct. 19: Lyon; Oct. 20-21: Paris.

In Marseilles, Balakian will read from and lecture about his great-uncle’s memoir of the genocide Armenian Golgotha. The English edition of Armenian Golgotha was translated by Peter Balakian and Aris Sevag and published to international acclaim in 2009 by Alfred A. Knopf. Bishop Grigoris Balakian was bishop of the Armenian church of Southern France from the mid 1920’s until his death in 1934, and is responsible for the construction of the Armenian churches and schools there. Le Chien Noir Du Destin can be ordered at www.metispresses.com.