Ararat-Eskijian Museum and National Association for Armenian Studies and Research

Family of Shadows:
A Century of Murder, Memory, and the
Armenian American Dream
An Author's Talk by Garin Hovannisian
As a world war rages through Europe in 1915, Ottoman authorities begin the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians-the first genocide of the 20th
century. A teenage boy named Kaspar Hovannisian is one among a generation of Armenians who survive the murder of their families and ancestral homeland and
escape to new destinies in the United States. Kaspar follows the American Dream to the San Joaquin Valley of California. But memories of his homeland
burn strong-a legacy of love, yearning, and faith in a national rebirth.

Kaspar's son Richard leaves the family farm ready to defend the history of a lost nation against the forces of time and denial. He helps pioneer the field
of Armenian Studies in the United States and becomes a world authority on genocide. Kaspar's grandson Raffi is also haunted by the past, and in 1989 he
leaves his law firm in Los Angeles to stage the original act of repatriation to Soviet Armenia, where he goes on to play a historic role in the creation of a new and independent republic.

In Family of Shadows (Harper Collins), part investigative memoir and part history of the Armenian diaspora, Garin Hovannisian--son of Raffi, grandson of
Richard, great-grandson of Kaspar--tells his family's story-a tale of tragedy, memory, and redemption which illuminates the long shadows that history casts on
the lives of men.

Garin K. Hovannisian is a recipient of the Fulbright Fellowship in Creative Writing and the Lynton Award for Book Writing. A graduate of the University of
California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he lives between Los Angeles and Yerevan. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, Liberty, and the literary journal Ararat.

Family of Shadows will be on sale the day of the lecture and available for signing by the author.

Naasr