From trauma to time travel: Debut novel explores Armenian Genocide survival
NICOSIA, Cyprus—What if you could return to the most painful moments of your life and change them? That haunting question lies at the heart of A Week in Berlin, the debut historical science fiction novel by Angelina Der Arakelian-Dennington.
The story follows Badrig Serdzovian, a man who escapes persecution, loses his family, flees to Europe and is forced to navigate a world irrevocably changed. When Badrig discovers he can relive and reshape moments from his past, the boundaries between memory and reality blur. He must confront not only the trauma he endured but also the moral complexities of altering history itself.
At the heart of the novel is the extraordinary story of Der Arakelian-Dennington’s great-grandfather, who narrowly escaped execution during the Armenian Genocide in a miraculous, last-minute intervention. This real-life brush with death—preserved on a cassette recording in Turkish and translated decades later—led the author to reflect deeply on her own fate and the legacies of trauma carried across generations. Through the story, she explores how survival shapes identity, how memory preserves and transforms the past and the questions historical tragedy leaves behind: why some survive, how trauma echoes across time and how fate and choice shape our lives.
“This is a story about resilience and remembrance,” says Der Arakelian–Dennington. “It explores what it truly means to live when the past is never far behind.”
Readers are drawn into a narrative where survival is only the beginning, and remembering becomes both a personal reckoning and an act of defiance against history’s attempts to erase lives and stories.
Already compared to The Time Traveler’s Wife and Cloud Atlas for its emotional and historical depth, A Week in Berlin is now available on Amazon in eBook format. Paperback and hardback editions will be released on Friday, September 5.
About the author
Angelina Der Arakelian-Dennington is an award-winning screenwriter, poet, journalist and debut novelist. She draws on her heritage and family history to craft narratives that are emotionally resonant, intellectually compelling and embedded in history.
