Edited By David Kherdian

Forging Identity from loss first-generation Armenian American writing This is an outstanding collection of literature from seventeen first-generation Armenian American authors, each introduced here by a member of the second generation. For the many readers who are unfamiliar with all but the most famous of these authors William Saroyan and Michael J. Arlen, for example, powerful discoveries await: the writing in this volume is intense, magical, and filled with love of life. It is also characterized by the unspeakable sadness that accompanied the loss of so many Armenians in the genocide of 1915. Many of those who survived the genocide found their way to America, and writing became a salvation for talented young Armenian Americans in their struggle for dignity, identity, and meaning in their adopted country. Suffused with a sense of history, colored by personal experience, and imbued with the hopefulness of a fresh start, these stories convey what history books cannot. What coalesces, instead, is a deeply American story of the forces that propel individuals forward into a new world.