New book: ‘The Book of Genocides’ by Dana Mashoian Walrath
The Book of Genocides by award-winning artist Dana Mashoian Walrath (Harvard University Press; September 8, 2026; $24.95 paperback with flaps) is a powerful graphic history that compels readers to confront humanity’s most harrowing hours — not as distant events, but as visceral experiences.
Drawing on the comics traditions of Art Spiegelman and Joe Sacco, Walrath traces ten genocides across five centuries — from the first slave ships to Armenia, from Palestine to Cambodia. These genocides have never been chronicled together in this accessible way, revealing the ongoing patterns of dehumanization and land theft at the core of each.
Rooted in Walrath’s own family history — her grandmother survived the Armenian genocide as a child by hiding in an urn — The Book of Genocides pairs her personal story with the histories and stories of people affected by genocidal violence. She traveled to each location in the book to absorb the communities it portrays, learning how inhabitants live with their legacies. Each chapter combines a concise history of a genocide with a unique interactive “turn-the-flap” sequence that explores how the mindset of dehumanization develops. With every page turn, the victims’ humanity is restored, making their suffering undeniable.
Walrath exposes the systems and beliefs that make genocide possible and shows us how they can be undone. Fearless in form and content, The Book of Genocides invites its readers to recognize our shared humanity across borders and identities to confront, prevent and end violence.
The Book of Genocides includes: the Genocide of the First Peoples of the Americas; the Genocide of Black Americans; the Genocide of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders; the Armenian Genocide; the Genocide of Jews in the Holocaust; the Palestinian Genocide; the Cambodian Genocide; the Tutsi Genocide in Rwanda; the Bosnian Genocide; and the Rohingya Genocide.
As an artist, writer, anthropologist, and granddaughter of genocide survivors, Walrath uses her work to challenge cycles of violence. She writes, “I aim to offer readers a sense of connection across borders, histories, and identities. At its core, the book is a call to action — one that challenges the idea that human violence is inevitable.”
The Book of Genocides is a brutal and unsettling experience, shot through with the emotional gravity of horrific events — not just historical memories but ongoing realities, painful truths that shape our world and demand our action, calling on us to remember, repair and resist.
A granddaughter of Armenian Genocide survivors, Dana Mashoian Walrath is a writer, artist, and anthropologist who believes in the transformative power of art. Her award-winning works include Aliceheimer’s, a graphic memoir about her mother’s journey with dementia, and Like Water on Stone, a verse novel about the Armenian Genocide. A MacDowell Fellow, Fulbright Scholar, and Atlantic Fellow, her comics, art, essays and poetry have been featured by The Nation, The Lancet and Slate, on NPR and in numerous anthologies including Menopause: A Comic Treatment, which was a New York Times Best of 2020 and Eisner Award winner. Walrath lives in Vermont.
