Family of Shadows - Paperback

by Garin K. Hovannisian (Author)

Combining the historical urgency of The Burning Tigris, the cultural sweep of Middlesex, and the psychological complexity of Bending Toward the Sun, Garin K. Hovannisian's Family of Shadows is a searing history of Armenia, realized through the lives of three generations of a single family. In Family of Shadows, Hovannisian traces the arc of his family's changing relationship to its motherland, from his great-grandfather's flight to America after surviving the Armenian Genocide to his father Raffi Hovannisian's repatriation and subsequent climb to political prominence as the head of the Heritage Party. Hovannisian's articles on Armenian issues, including the Genocide, the Armenian Diaspora, and the challenges of post-Soviet statehood, have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune, Armenian Observer, Ararat, and numerous other publications.

This epic historical memoir chronicles a century of struggle and survival:

• The Armenian Genocide: Follow Kaspar Hovannisian, a fourteen-year-old boy who survives the death marches of 1915 and escapes the Ottoman Empire to build a new life in a new world.
• The Armenian American Dream: Witness a family's success in California, from the vineyards of Tulare to the halls of UCLA, as they navigate their identity between two worlds.
• Soviet Armenia: Experience the reality of life behind the Iron Curtain and the first sparks of a democratic movement that would challenge Moscow and inspire a nation.
• Repatriation and Rebirth: Join Raffi Hovannisian as he returns to the motherland to become the first Foreign Minister of a newly independent Armenia, facing the challenges of war and statehood.

Front Jacket

As a world war rages through Europe in 1915, Ottoman authorities commence the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians--the first genocide of modern history. Alone, a teenage boy named Kaspar Hovannisian escapes the ruins of his ancestral homeland to pursue the American dream. In the San Joaquin Valley of California, he cultivates a small farm and invests in real estate. But memories of Armenia burn strong--a complicated legacy of love, anguish, and faith in a national rebirth.

Kaspar's son, Richard, leaves the family farm and helps pioneer the field of Armenian studies in the United States, becoming a worldwide authority on genocide. Richard's son, Raffi, is also haunted--and inspired--by the past. In 1989, he leaves his law firm in Los Angeles to stage the original act of repatriation to Soviet Armenia, where he goes on to play an historic role in the creation of a new republic.

Part investigative family memoir and part history of the Armenian people, Garin K. Hovannisian's Family of Shadows is a breathtaking saga of tragedy, memory, and redemption that illuminates the long shadows that history casts on the lives of men.

Back Jacket

As a world war rages through Europe in 1915, Ottoman authorities commence the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians--the first genocide of modern history. Alone, a teenage boy named Kaspar Hovannisian escapes the ruins of his ancestral homeland to pursue the American dream. In the San Joaquin Valley of California, he cultivates a small farm and invests in real estate. But memories of Armenia burn strong--a complicated legacy of love, anguish, and faith in a national rebirth.

Kaspar's son, Richard, leaves the family farm and helps pioneer the field of Armenian studies in the United States, becoming a worldwide authority on genocide. Richard's son, Raffi, is also haunted--and inspired--by the past. In 1989, he leaves his law firm in Los Angeles to stage the original act of repatriation to Soviet Armenia, where he goes on to play an historic role in the creation of a new republic.

Part investigative family memoir and part history of the Armenian people, Garin K. Hovannisian's Family of Shadows is a breathtaking saga of tragedy, memory, and redemption that illuminates the long shadows that history casts on the lives of men.