Aline Ohanesian’s “Orhan’s Inheritance”, Co-Translated by AUA’s Hayarpi Sahakyan, to Debut Paperback Edition in La Jolla, CA
2 min read
Author Aline Ohanesian to Debut the Paperback Edition of her Novel at Warwick’s in La Jolla
SAN DIEGO – Internationally acclaimed author, Aline Ohanesian, whose book “Orhan’s Inheritance” has become a breakout novel set against the backdrop of the Armenian Genocide, will be appearing at Warwick’s bookstore in La Jolla, California on Wednesday, April 20, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Reserved seating is available. Only books purchased from Warwick’s will be signed. Please call the Warwick’s Book Dept. (858) 454-0347 for details. Warwick’s is located at 7812 Girard Ave, La Jolla, CA 92037.
This evening event has been organized in honor of the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Aline Ohanesian’s great-grandmother, who hailed from Sepastia (Sivas), was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. Her history was the kernel for the story that Ohanesian tells in her first novel.
A favorite of book clubs around the world, Orhan’s Inheritance was a seven-year labor of love for the author. “I did not set out to write Armenian genocide novel,” Ohanesian says, because she wasn’t sure she had anything new to say about it. But then more characters came to her: They were men, Turkish men, and she started to think about how she might tell the story from different angles.
“One of the perspectives was a modern-day Turkish man, maybe my equivalent living in Istanbul somewhere, a decent human being who didn’t have all the historical facts,” she says. “A good person, but slightly apathetic.”
That young man is Orhan. As the book opens, his grandfather has just died and left the family home in Turkey to a woman no one knows. She is an Armenian living in a nursing home in California, where many Armenians settled. Orhan visits her to find out how she knew his grandfather, and at first, she refuses to talk about what happened so many years ago.
At the heart of this book is an ill-fated love story between the woman, who was once known as Lucine, and Kemal, her Turkish neighbor who grew up to become Orhan’s grandfather. They were barely into puberty when their childhood friendship began blossoming into something else.
On November 27, 2015, the National Children’s Library of Armenia hosted the launch of the Armenian translation of Orhan’s Inheritance. Hayarpi Sahakyan, Office Coordinator in American University of Armenia’s Office of the Registrar, who holds a Certificate in Translation from AUA, and David Matevossian translated the book, which was published as part of the Aghet Series of Aktual Arvest Press. Orhan’s Inheritance has been translated into over 12 languages, and is the #1 bestseller in Serbia and Croatia.
It was a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, an Indie Pick, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, and an Amazon pick for Top 25 Books of 2015. The novel was long listed for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. Ohanesian lives and writes in Orange County, California with her husband and two young sons.
For more information about Ohanesian’s appearance at Warwick’s on April 20th, please visit http://www.warwicks.com/event/aline-ohanesian-2016.