Memoir
‘It lingers in my mind.’
On February 19, 2020, I received an email from writer and scholar David Calonne, whose review of my 2017 novel The Naked & the Nude was published in the Armenian Weekly last summer. Calonne was […]
Memoir
Literary Corner
The Prince of Wentworth Street
Losing your way in mid-life, as I did about ten years ago, is not unusual. As we reach our sixth and seventh decades, we find we may have shed the identities that we believed defined […]
Memoir
Light and Momentary Troubles
When I think about it now, it’s fitting that I first met Raya near a railroad. I didn’t know it at the time, but for her, trains hold many memories. They are a symbol of […]
Literary Corner
Speaking Armenian—Choice? Luxury? Bother?
I put down the pen and stared at the paper for ten minutes. I checked the dictionary, revisited my mind’s wordbook. Countless minutes passed. I was still unable to find what I was looking for. […]
Memoir
Excerpt from the New Memoir, ‘Liminal,’ by a Baku Pogrom Survivor
Idaho-based Armenian-American activist and entrepreneur Liyah Babayan, a native of Baku, has released her first book, Liminal: a refugee memoir. Based around journal entries written by her at a young age and documenting her family’s […]
Memoir
I Was a Star Student in Armenia—Then I Left
There was pain in the upper eyelid and redness inside the eye. At four in the morning, I was alone in a washroom, looking deep into my eyes through a large and limpid mirror. There […]
Memoir
Macy’s Day Parade in Artsakh
I’ve never been to the famous Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, but the closest I’ve felt to it was in the courtyard of a house in Stepanakert. Even though I wasn’t on […]
Memoir
Moving to France Made Me Question Everything—Except the Fact that I’m Armenian
On a cold sunny day in Paris this past October, I leaned against a column inside the courtyard of the Invalides and watched Charles Aznavour’s funeral service. I was on crutches, and I remember thinking […]
Memoir
Suburban America Through the Recipe Cabinet of My Immigrant Mother
For years, I’ve eyed my mother’s recipe cabinet longingly. Brimming with books slung together in no particular rhyme or reason, it occupies two giant floor cupboards in my parents’ kitchen. I have hoped to one […]
Memoir
Ara Jan, Goodbye…
Beirut. October 18, 2018. Thursday. Mgrdich Ara Derderian, known as Ara Güler passed away today at the age of 90. The story of my meeting the giant photographer took place many years ago, in Aleppo […]