About the Book:
Set in an Armenian mountain village immediately after the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s, these thirty-one linked short stories trace the interconnected lives of villagers tending to their everyday tasks, engaging in quotidian squabbles, and celebrating small joys against a breathtaking landscape. Yet the setting, suspended in time and space, belies unspeakable tragedy: every character contends with an unbearable burden of loss. The war rages largely off the book’s pages, appearing only in fragmented flashbacks. Abgaryan’s stories focus on how, in the war’s aftermath, the survivors work, as individuals and as a community, to find a way forward. Written in Abgaryan’s signature style that weaves elements of Armenian folk tradition into her prose, these stories of community, courage, and resilience celebrate human life, where humor and love and hope prevail in unthinkable circumstances.
My Review:
These short stories give good insight what it is like to live in a country during and after a war. It highlights the bravery and determination of the survivors. I like how people found support in each other and the will to go on. The pain and grief, questioning God and being angry at God. There are glimpses of life before the war and then the war's destruction, like coming home from a funeral and finding a crater where your house was.
These stories are an emotional journey through war, the dying and the living.
My rating: 4/5 stars.
About the Author:
Narine Abgaryan was born in 1971 in Berd, Armenia, in the family of a doctor and a school teacher. She graduated from the State University of Linguistic Studies in Erevan, with a diploma of a teacher of Russian language and literature. Abgaryan is the author of a dozen of books, including her bestselling (over 100,000 copies sold!) and prize-winning trilogy about Manyunya, a busy and troublesome 11-year-old in a small Armenian town Berd. Abgaryan’s other book for children, Semyon Andreich, received BABY-NOSE from New Literature Prize in 2013, as Russia's best children’s book of the decimal. Narine Abgaryan's acclaimed novel for the adults, Three Apples Fell From the Sky, has been translated into 12 languages and won Yasnaya Polyana Award in 2018.
Since 1993 Narine lives in Moscow.
Plough Publishing House, 194 pages.
I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publsher. My comments are an independent and honest review.
(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)
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