Join the Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Department and Nancy Kricorian in conversation with Shahé Mankerian to discuss her latest book “The Burning Heart of the World” on Wednesday, April 2, from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Central Library’s Auditorium.
In vivid, poetic prose, Kricorian’s “The Burning Heart of the World” tells the story of a Beirut Armenian family before, during and after the Lebanese Civil War. Returning to the fable-esque tone of “Zabelle,” her popular first novel, Kricorian conjures up the lost worlds and intergenerational traumas that haunt a family living in permanent exile. Leavened with humor and imbued with the timelessness of a folktale, “The Burning Heart of the World” is a sweeping saga that takes readers on an epic journey from the mountains of Cilicia to contemporary New York City.
“The Burning Heart of the World” will be published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the start of the Lebanese Civil War and the 110th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
Nancy Kricorian, who was born and raised in the Armenian community of Watertown, Massachusetts, is the author of four novels about post-genocide experience of the Armenian diaspora. “Zabelle,” which was translated into seven languages, was adapted as a play and has been steadily available in print since 1998. Kricorian’s essays and poems have appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, Guernica, Parnassus, Minnesota Review, The Mississippi Review and other journals.
She has taught at Barnard, Columbia, Yale and New York universities, the New York City Department of Education’s Teacher & Writers Collaborative and the Palestine Writing Workshop in Birzeit. Kricorian has received a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, a gold medal from the Writers Union of Armenia and the Anahid Literary Award. She lives in New York City.
Mankerian is the principal of St. Gregory Hovsepian School in Pasadena and the director of mentorship at the International Armenian Literary Alliance. “History of Forgetfulness” by Mankerian has been a finalist at or for the Bibby First Book Competition, the Crab Orchard Poetry Open Competition, the Quercus Review Press Poetry Book Award and the White Pine Press Poetry Prize.
