Armenia

An epic novel portraying a tragic and miraculous true saga that took place during World War II’s Armenian Genocide… As I say so often, this book revealed to me another major event I’d never heard of in a part of the world I don’t think of much. The story of the group of Armenians who evaded persecution by the Ottomans by fleeing to the mountain Musa Dagh (for— you guessed it— forty days) emphasized both the incredible resilience and frailty of humans alike; and it revealed how facing death and injustice can lead us to both tear each other apart and come together to overcome the odds. I don’t feel like I can fairly evaluate how much I liked the book overall, simply because I read it sporadically over the course of several years, and therefore was often somewhat lost and disoriented… but the writing was as poetic and brutal as the story, and it’ll stay with me for awhile.