Zabelle

A Novel

Fiction & Literature, Cultural Heritage, Historical, Literary
Cover of the book Zabelle by Nancy Kricorian, Grove Atlantic
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Author: Nancy Kricorian ISBN: 9781555848064
Publisher: Grove Atlantic Publication: September 15, 2009
Imprint: Grove Press Language: English
Author: Nancy Kricorian
ISBN: 9781555848064
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Publication: September 15, 2009
Imprint: Grove Press
Language: English

An Armenian immigrant’s journey from the author of Dreams of Bread and Fire. “Haunting and convincing . . . There’s a fairy-tale quality to the prose” (Joyce Carol Oates**, The New Yorker).**
 
Zabelle begins in a suburb of Boston with the quiet death of Zabelle Chahasbanian, an elderly widow and grandmother whose history remains vastly unknown to her family. But as the story shifts back in time to Zabelle’s childhood in the waning days of Ottoman Turkey, where she survives the 1915 Armenian genocide and near starvation in the Syrian desert, an unforgettable character begins to emerge. Zabelle’s journey encompasses years in an Istanbul orphanage, a fortuitous adoption by a rich Armenian family, and an arranged marriage to an Armenian grocer who brings her to America where the often comic interactions and battles she wages are forever colored by shadows from the long-lost world of her past.
 
“Kricorian is able to transform oral history into her own distinctive, accomplished prose. As in Toni Morrison’s work, the act of simple remembering is not enough; Zabelle, like Morrison’s best work, is a lovely and artful piece.” —Time Out New York

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

An Armenian immigrant’s journey from the author of Dreams of Bread and Fire. “Haunting and convincing . . . There’s a fairy-tale quality to the prose” (Joyce Carol Oates**, The New Yorker).**
 
Zabelle begins in a suburb of Boston with the quiet death of Zabelle Chahasbanian, an elderly widow and grandmother whose history remains vastly unknown to her family. But as the story shifts back in time to Zabelle’s childhood in the waning days of Ottoman Turkey, where she survives the 1915 Armenian genocide and near starvation in the Syrian desert, an unforgettable character begins to emerge. Zabelle’s journey encompasses years in an Istanbul orphanage, a fortuitous adoption by a rich Armenian family, and an arranged marriage to an Armenian grocer who brings her to America where the often comic interactions and battles she wages are forever colored by shadows from the long-lost world of her past.
 
“Kricorian is able to transform oral history into her own distinctive, accomplished prose. As in Toni Morrison’s work, the act of simple remembering is not enough; Zabelle, like Morrison’s best work, is a lovely and artful piece.” —Time Out New York

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