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Book: Four Years in the Mountains of Kurdistan

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  • Book: Four Years in the Mountains of Kurdistan

    Kirkus Reviews (Print)
    January 1, 2015, Thursday

    FOUR YEARS IN THE MOUNTAINS OF KURDISTAN;
    An Armenian Boy's Memoir of Survival


    An account of tragic years in Armenian history.In 1915, Haigaz
    (1900-1986), born Aram Chekenian, his mother and sisters became
    victims of Armenian persecution by Ottoman Turks, forced from their
    homes to march across the Syrian Desert. Starving and destitute, they
    came to a village where they discovered that other Armenian boys,
    after converting to Islam, found work as servants in Turkish
    households. Acceding to his mother's pleas, the young Haigaz became a
    willing convert.

    For the next four years, he lived among Kurdish tribes, tending sheep,
    reaping crops, feeding chickens and serving as a trusted messenger.
    Living in intimate proximity to the families, he learned their
    customs, secrets and, with astute cunning, vulnerabilities. After
    immigrating to America when he was 21, Haigaz began to write and
    publish his memories of the massacre that killed his father and
    brothers, and he mined his experiences in short stories that were
    published in The Armenian Review. The author adapted some of those
    stories for a memoir, published in Armenian in 1972 and now
    translated, condensed and edited by his daughter. Haigaz tells a
    harrowing story of barbaric cruelty by Turks against the people they
    considered infidels. Nevertheless, after he converted to Islam-a
    simple matter of declaration-he was treated humanely. When his first
    master died, Haigaz moved to the household of his younger brother, a
    "sensible, modest, and godly" man who had not taken part in the
    Armenian massacres and, in fact, "could not kill a chicken or watch a
    sheep being slaughtered." His only vice seemed to be a great love of
    alcohol, though forbidden by the Quran. Haigaz reveals intertribal
    struggles and betrayals as world war raged in the background. In the
    spring of 1919, with the Ottoman Empire defeated, he saw his chance to
    escape. A richly detailed testimony to a young man's courage in the
    face of unspeakable horror.

    Publication Date: 2015-03-26
    Publisher: Maiden Lane Press
    Stage: Adult
    ISBN: 978-1-940210-06-3
    Price: $26.95
    Author: Haigaz, Aram

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