Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Book Review: As the Poppies Bloomed

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Book Review: As the Poppies Bloomed

    Kirkus Reviews (Print)
    February 1, 2015, Sunday


    AS THE POPPIES BLOOMED

    FICTION; Historical

    On the eve of war and destruction, an Armenian family tries to
    maintain its traditional way of life in this historical novel.As this
    luminous, doom-tinged tale begins, it's 1913 in eastern Turkey, and in
    the little Armenian village of Salor, the headman's teenage daughter
    Anno is hiding in an abandoned well, not only to escape from war or
    soldiers, but to evade prying eyes on this busy day when her sister is
    getting married and to steal a moment with Daron, the young man she
    loves. Their Romeo-and-Juliet story occupies much of the novel. Anno's
    father objects to the marriage; he wrongly believes that Daron's
    father has been sexually immoral.

    As this knot gets unraveled, the villagers go about their daily,
    age-old agrarian routines. And some men quietly make dangerous trips
    to gather arms and ammo, especially after 1915, when the Ottoman
    government begins rounding up and murdering Armenian intellectuals and
    political leaders. Armenians remember the massacres of 1894 and wish
    to be prepared this time. "But," as one fedayee, or freedom fighter,
    observes, "how will a tiny band of men such as ourselves, with nothing
    but the guns we can smuggle, protect our people from the whole of the
    Turkish army?" They can't, and this knowledge hangs over the reader
    like the clouds veiling Salor's nearby Mount Maratuk. In her debut
    novel, Boyadjian vividly conjures the specific sensory details of the
    Armenians' lost world-food, drink, nature, daily tasks, and handmade
    objects, such as a rug given for a wedding "with such a joyous blend
    of deep reds, oranges, and yellows that everyone gasped." The story is
    fiction but is based on memories from the author's four
    grandparents-all survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide. Their
    survival adds a note of hope.Powerful and sensitive, this tragic novel
    helps illuminate a historical episode still too little known or
    acknowledged.

    Publication Date: 2015-01-04
    Publisher: Salor Press
    Stage: Indie
    ISBN: 978-0-9911241-0-7
    Price: $15.95
    Author: Boyadjian, Maral

Working...
X