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The Heart that Rests in the Highlands
In 1982, a year after William Saroyan’s death on May 18, a Moscow airport was filled with solemn chaos as members of the Writers Union of Armenia prepared to receive the precious ashes of the great Armeni
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Thank you for sharing this. I did nor know that Saroyan had willed to have his ashes unearthed and buried in Bitlis, should it liberated nor did I know that part of his ashes were buried in Armenia with. such solemnity.
A beautiful and very interesting subject to report on. One correction, Saroyan’s ashes had not been buried in Fresno prior to the one in Armenia. In fact, for decades Saroyan’s grave in Armenia was his ONLY grave. The other half of the ashes remained on the shelf of a funeral home in Fresno for many years, for reasons unknown to me, but reading this article makes me wonder if it was in anticipated for the quixotic liberation of Bitlis. More likely though, just nobody bothered to bury them until 2002, which begs its own questions as to why, especially when he was given such a popular burial in Armenia.
Hello from Turkey.
I have recently read the above article in Turkish in the weekly Agos newspaper. I wanted to write my comments directly to Jane Partizpanyan but I couldn’t find her e-mail. Anyway, I am glad I have found this link,to leave my comment.
It was a well-written and thought-evoking article. I enjoyed reading it and of course learned many new things. By the way, several years ago, I watched the movie ‘SaroyanLand’ at a film festival in Istanbul. It was very emotional for me to watch it.
By the way, I want to tell you and your readers : Please don’t forget that many Turks don’t deny the genocide, even though we are in the minority among all Turks. I am sad that the deniers still seem to be in the majority among Turks.
Best wishes,
Cem