Narine Yurievna Abgaryan

This was so very wonderful. I sought it out because of a Read Across Asia challenge (the author, Abgaryan, is Armenian), and listen, the "balm for the soul" claim on the front cover was not an oversell.

At first this felt like a collection of connected short stories, but the chapters and various characters wove closer and closer together until it was all clearly a single piece. The story of Anatolia, but really of all of the village of Maran, which after earthquake, locusts, famine, and war, is home to only a few dozen old people. But this isn't a tragic tale of disappearing ways of life, but rather an affirming one of second chances, the ties of relationship and remembrance, the mutual care and aid that makes a community.

Really beautiful.… (más)