Critically acclaimed author Chris Bohjalian led a spirited and engaging book discussion about his New York Times best-selling novel The Sandcastle Girls on Thurs., April 19 at Columbia University’s Cowin Conference Center at an event hosted by the Armenian Center at Columbia University.
On tour for the paperback release of The Sandcastle Girls, a love story that takes place during the Armenian Genocide, Bohjalian impressed the audience with his deep historical knowledge of the genocide and the powerful rippling effect the book has had in educating people about the atrocities.
In her introduction of Bohjalian, Dr. Nicole Vartanian, vice-chair of the Armenian Center at Columbia, noted the author’s “boundless intellectual curiosity” and his ability to pull in his audience from the very beginning.
“His skilled narrative is seamless and captivating all at once,” she said. “Bohjalian’s pen and prose merge to create an epic story of love, loss, betrayal, survival, hope, fear, and fortitude.”
For the audience to gain a better understanding of the significance of The Sandcastle Girls and how it came into being, Bohjalian began his presentation by sharing photos of his family dating back to 19th-century Constantinople.
One was of his grandfather as a youngster sitting on his father’s lap at the turn of the 20th century in the Ottoman Empire. “My grandparents, Leo and Haigouhi Bohjalian, were survivors of the Armenian Genocide,” he said. “Like most survivors, they took their stories to their graves.”
Flashing a black and white photo of his parents’ wedding day, Bohjalian revealed that his mother was not Armenian, but Swedish. “My mother was never the outsider because she adored her Armenian family,” he said, showing a touching photo of a bronze charm of Armenia that was on his mother’s keychain.
Shedding some light on his family’s history, Bohjalian said his great-grandfather provided cavalry horsemen to the Turks. But with the start of the genocide, they confiscated his horses, home, and property in Constantinople, and killed him. The surviving members of the family made their way to Egypt, and his grandparents eventually met and wed in Paris.
Growing up in Westchester, N.Y., Bohjalian was close with his grandparents, and would accompany them to the Holy Cross Armenian Church in Washington Heights on Sundays. The memory of his grandparents and the impact they had on his life remained with him, as when he first attempted, 17 years ago, to write a novel about the genocide. After completing the manuscript, however, he was not happy with the result; almost two decades later, he decided it was time to try again. But this time, he wanted to do it right, because “in my heart, I knew The Sandcastle Girls was the most important novel I was ever going to write.”
The book focuses on the story of an American nurse who brings aid to Armenians in Aleppo, Syria, where she meets Armen Petrosyan, an engineer who lost his wife and infant daughter to the genocide. In the present, their granddaughter Laura is drawn back by a photo she sees at the Armenian Library Museum of America (ALMA) in Watertown, Mass., of a woman who, based on the caption, is related to her. This picture links the present and the past. As Bohjalian noted, there is an “enormous amount of my childhood in this book.”
When he completed his manuscript, Bohjaian was warned that the book would be a commercial disaster because “no one has heard about the Armenian Genocide and no one wants to read about the death of 1.5 million people.” He maintained his belief in the novel, however, and of getting this story out to the world.
He thanked the support of many Armenian organizations, such as the AGBU and ANCA, which hosted “remarkable events in three time zones in the first three days the book was published.” Word of mouth spread quickly and soon Bohjalian was giving book talks to non-Armenians who were interested in hearing the truth about the genocide, a chapter of history they had never known. Bohjalian showed pictures of book groups who sent him photos expressing how much the book meant to them, as well as photos posted by those who were reading The Sandcastle Girls all over the world, from Norway to Afghanistan. Within weeks, he had sold the foreign rights to such countries as the United Kingdom, Brazil, Russia, France, and Israel.
A highlight of Bohjalian’s presentation was a photo journey that included the Catholicosate of Cilicia in Antelias, Lebanon, where there is an Armenian Genocide Museum, and Der Zor in Syria, where “to this day you can run your fingers through the sand and come away with fragments of skull and bone of our ancestors.”
Bohjalian also made a trip to the Jebel orphanage in Lebanon, founded by a Danish missionary, which housed more than 3,000 Armenian orphans, and the Musa Dagh memorial in Anjar, where he saw canisters that were once filled with ashes of genocide martyrs.
His journey concluded with a trip to Yerevan, where he “went to the Armenian Genocide memorial in Yerevan and placed flowers at the eternal flame in memory of our ancestors.”
“It was important for me to see the geography of the Armenian soul from the Armenian ground, to see Mount Ararat,” he said. “Ararat and Musa Dagh are two mountains that comprise the geography of the Armenian soul.”
Mark Momjian, the chair of the Armenian Center at Columbia University, thanked Bohjalian for a gripping and emotional discussion. He presented Bohjalian with a gift of an inscribed copy of the novel Mayfair by the Armenian writer Michael Arlen, and invited guests to a reception, where Bohjalian signed copies of his books.
Bohjalian’s story behind The Sandcastle Girls and his ties to his Armenian heritage inspired attendees. Nora Arkelian traveled all the way from Eerie, Pa., so she and her children could hear Bohjalian’s talk. “I wanted my children to make this trip with me so that they understand their heritage, and how special it is to be Armenian,” said Arkelian, whose children never met their great-grandmother, a genocide survivor. “Chris’ characters in the book reminded me of how strong a people we are. As Chris reminds us, ‘We are the mountain.’”
Columbia University Teacher’s College student Anna Abalyan was impressed with Bohjalian’s discussion and was “glad to see the book is helping raise awareness about the Armenian Genocide.” Historian Dr. Vartan Matossian appreciated Bohjalian’s ability to convey the story of how the book was written.
“I was particularly interested to hear his reflections about being the son of an ‘assimilated’ Armenian-American and how he had been, predictably, attracted to trying his hand at the literary representation of the genocide, if such a thing is really feasible, over the past 20 years,” Matossian said.
The Armenian Center at Columbia University was proud to host such an impassioned and remarkable writer like Bohjalian. “The timing of Chris Bohjalian’s inspirational talk at Columbia University, marking the 98th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, is critical,” said Momjian. “With the centennial two years away, our hearts and minds are moved by this great writer and his dedication not only to preserving the memory of this terrible crime, but the miraculous survival of the Armenian people.”
“Chris’ presentation not only offered a fascinating perspective on the novel’s, and his own, evolution through the stories it tells, but also demonstrated why he is such a celebrated and beloved novelist,” said Vartanian. “Interweaving personal anecdotes with the challenges of authoring a novel that requires such historical precision, he humbly exposed his writing and editing processes to the audience in a way that will linger with us as we return to the pages of this extraordinary novel again and again.”
Taleen Babayan
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