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The Courier Mail (Australia)
September 8, 2007 Saturday
First with the news Edition
books fiction
The Edge of the World
Marcella Polain
Fremantle Press, $26.95
STORIES of the migrant experience, told from the perspective of the
child born or raised in the new world, are commonplace these days as
wars continue and the world ruthlessly shifts borders and alliances
creating new waves of outsiders. I was reminded of Lily Brett's
memoir Too Many Men when I began to read this fictionalised memoir of
an Armenian woman. Both tell of the difficulty growing up with a
parent who has experienced the greatest horrors imaginable. The Edge
of the World is a story about a shocking chapter in the history of
the Armenian people. Moving back and forth from the present to the
days of the Ottoman Empire in 1890, and based on stories handed down
from the author's mother and grandmother, we follow an Armenian
family, Benyamin and Hovsanna Vartevarian and their 12 children.
Benyamin is a successful architect who in his youth travelled and
studied in Paris. Their lives in Turkey are comparatively stable and
prosperous -- until the massacres against Armenian people begin. The
family is torn apart with imprisonment, torture and slaughter. Years
later, the survivors' scars are too deep for normal living. The
latter part of the book is set in Perth where the author grew up in
the shadow of this history.
Polain has given us more than just a harrowing account of what
happened to her people. She has told a story that is quite beautiful
and poetic. This is a creative achievement.
September 8, 2007 Saturday
First with the news Edition
books fiction
The Edge of the World
Marcella Polain
Fremantle Press, $26.95
STORIES of the migrant experience, told from the perspective of the
child born or raised in the new world, are commonplace these days as
wars continue and the world ruthlessly shifts borders and alliances
creating new waves of outsiders. I was reminded of Lily Brett's
memoir Too Many Men when I began to read this fictionalised memoir of
an Armenian woman. Both tell of the difficulty growing up with a
parent who has experienced the greatest horrors imaginable. The Edge
of the World is a story about a shocking chapter in the history of
the Armenian people. Moving back and forth from the present to the
days of the Ottoman Empire in 1890, and based on stories handed down
from the author's mother and grandmother, we follow an Armenian
family, Benyamin and Hovsanna Vartevarian and their 12 children.
Benyamin is a successful architect who in his youth travelled and
studied in Paris. Their lives in Turkey are comparatively stable and
prosperous -- until the massacres against Armenian people begin. The
family is torn apart with imprisonment, torture and slaughter. Years
later, the survivors' scars are too deep for normal living. The
latter part of the book is set in Perth where the author grew up in
the shadow of this history.
Polain has given us more than just a harrowing account of what
happened to her people. She has told a story that is quite beautiful
and poetic. This is a creative achievement.