Monday, May 4, 2015

Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bojalian


The systematic slaughter of the Armenian Christians by the Turkish Muslims is a primarily overlooked piece of history. In 1915, under the guise of national security – Turkey was allied with Germany in WW I and accused the Armenians of siding with the British – an estimated 1,000,000+ Armenian men, women, and children were exterminated. Author Chris Bojalian has created a novel of great sensitivity and honesty without sensationalizing a topic that needs none.


Moving between contemporary America and 1915 Aleppo, Bojalian brings together a moving portrait of ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances and their attempts to try to fix or alleviate the horrors they find surrounding them. Sandcastle Girls paints a clear picture of lives and circumstances without excessively graphic descriptions and succeeds in making its points and telling its stories without driving the reader away. It was emotionally hard to read, but impossible to put down. 

CAS

Non-fiction follow up: Burning Tigris by Peter Balakian

No comments:

Post a Comment