Ebook218 pages3 hours
Zabelle: A Novel
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this ebook
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
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
Author
Nancy Kricorian
Nancy Kricorian, author of the novels Zabelle and Dreams of Bread and Fire, is a widely published poet, essayist, and activist. After graduating from Dartmouth, Nancy studied and worked in Paris before earning an MFA in writing at Columbia University.
Read more from Nancy Kricorian
All the Light There Was: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dreams of Bread and Fire Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
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Reviews for Zabelle
Rating: 3.65625011875 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
16 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book told the life story of a girl who survived the Armenian genocide. Only a one chapter really dealt directly with the horrors that happened to her people, but as the book followed the rest of her life, you could see the after effects that losing her entire family in such a horrific way had on her. She had an arranged marriage and immigrated to Boston, bore, loved and raised three children. The book had a lot of religious undertones, as the family was very religious. One of her children became a televangelist and changed his name.This book made me laugh and cry at parts. It started out slow, but moved quickly through her life. Zabelle was a very admirable character and a strong woman.
Book preview
Zabelle - Nancy Kricorian
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