BELMONT, Mass. — Author Dana Walrath will present a talk in connection with her acclaimed novel-in-verse Like Water on Stone on Thursday, October 8, at7:30 p.m., at the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center, 395 Concord Ave.
It is 1914, and the Ottoman Empire is crumbling into violence. Beyond Anatolia, in the Armenian Highlands, Shahen Donabedian dreams of going to New York. Sosi, his twin sister, never wants to leave her home, especially now that she is in love. At first, only Papa, who counts Turks and Kurds among his closest friends, stands in Shahen’s way. But when the Ottoman pashas set in motion their plans to eliminate all Armenians, neither twin has a choice.
After a horrifying attack leaves them orphaned, they flee into the mountains, carrying their little sister, Mariam. But the children are not alone. An eagle watches over them as they run at night and hide each day, making their way across mountain ridges and rivers red with blood.
Dana Walrath is the granddaughter of survivors of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. She earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and a BA from Barnard College, Columbia University. She completed Like Water on Stone (Delacorte/Random House, 2014), her first novel, during the year she spent as a Fulbright Scholar in Armenia working on a project that builds on her award-winning graphic memoir series Aliceheimer’s (Harvest, 2013).
Awards for her novel include the 2015 Notable Book for Global Society, the 2015 CBC Notable Trade Book for Social Studies, YALSA’s Best Fiction Nominee for 2015, and it is a finalist for the Vermont Book Award.
Copies of Like Water on Stone will be available the night of the lecture.
