Black Dog Of Fate

Download or read book Black Dog of Fate written by Peter Balakian and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2009-02-10 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "His visions are burning -- his poetry heartbreaking," wrote Elie Wiesel of American poet Peter Balakian. Now, in elegant prose, the prize-winning poet who James Dickey called "an extraordinary talent" has written a compelling memoir about growing up American in a family that was haunted by a past too fraught with terror to be spoken of openly. Black Dog of Fate is set in the affluent New Jersey suburbs where Balakian -- the firstborn son of his generation -- grew up in a close, extended family. At the center of what was a quintessential American baby boom childhood lay the dark specter of a trauma his forebears had experienced -- the Ottoman Turkish government's extermination of more than a million Armenians in 1915, the century's first genocide. In a story that climaxes to powerful personal and moral revelations, Balakian traces the complex process of discovering the facts of his people's history and the horrifying aftermath of the Turkish government's campaign to cover up one of the worst crimes ever committed against humanity. In describing his awakening to the facts of history, Balakian introduces us to a remarkable family of matriarchs and merchants, physicians, a bishop, and his aunts, two well-known figures in the world of literature. The unforgettable central figure of the story is Balakian's grandmother, a survivor and widow of the Genocide who speaks in fragments of metaphor and myth as she cooks up Armenian delicacies, plays the stock market, and keeps track of the baseball stats of her beloved Yankees. The book is infused with the intense and often comic collision between this family's ancient Near Eastern traditions and the American pop culture of the '50s and '60s.Balakian moves with ease from childhood memory, to history, to his ancestors' lives, to the story of a poet's coming of age. Written with power and grace, Black Dog of Fate unfolds like a tapestry its tale of survival against enormous odds. Through the eyes of a poet, here is the arresting story of a family's journey from its haunted past to a new life in a new world.

Download or read book Black Dog Of Fate written by Peter Balakian and published by . This book was released on 1997-05 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poet Peter Balakian relates the story of his childhood in New Jersey, where the American culture of the 1950s and 60s collided with his family's memories of the extermination of Armenians by the Turkish government in 1915.

Download or read book Armenian Golgotha written by Grigoris Balakian and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-03-09 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On April 24, 1915, Grigoris Balakian was arrested along with some 250 other leaders of Constantinople’s Armenian community. It was the beginning of the Ottoman Empire’s systematic attempt to eliminate the Armenian people from Turkey—a campaign that continued through World War I and the fall of the empire. Over the next four years, Balakian would bear witness to a seemingly endless caravan of blood, surviving to recount his miraculous escape and expose the atrocities that led to over a million deaths. Armenian Golgotha is Balakian’s devastating eyewitness account—a haunting reminder of the first modern genocide and a controversial historical document that is destined to become a classic of survivor literature.

Download or read book The Burning Tigris written by Peter Balakian and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller, The Burning Tigris is “a vivid and comprehensive account” (Los Angeles Times) of the Armenian Genocide and America’s response. Award-winning, critically acclaimed author Peter Balakian presents a riveting narrative of the massacres of the Armenians in the 1890s and of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. Using rarely seen archival documents and remarkable first-person accounts, Balakian presents the chilling history of how the Turkish government implemented the first modern genocide behind the cover of World War I. And in the telling, he resurrects an extraordinary lost chapter of American history. Awarded the Raphael Lemkin Prize for the best scholarly book on genocide by the Institute for Genocide Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice/CUNY Graduate Center. “Timely and welcome. . . an overwhelmingly convincing retort to genocide deniers.” —New York Times Book Review “A story of multiplying horror and betrayal. . . . What happened to the Armenians in Turkey was a harbinger of the Holocaust and of the waves of modern mass murder that have swept the world ever since.” —Boston Globe “Encourages America to tap into a forgotten well of knowledge about the genocide and to revive its powerful impulse toward humanitarianism.” —New York Newsday

Download or read book The Devil Is a Black Dog written by Sándor Jászberényi and published by Scribe Publications. This book was released on 2015-10-21 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘I don’t regret anything, really. I never wanted to live a sensible life … I didn’t want a sensible death either.’ War-torn Africa, a Middle East in crisis, and post-Soviet Eastern Europe form the backdrop to the stories told in The Devil Is a Black Dog — stories based on the extraordinary experiences of acclaimed photojournalist Sándor Jászberényi. From Cairo to the Gaza Strip, from Benghazi to Budapest, his characters contemplate the meaning of home, love, family, and friendship in the face of brutality. Immersed in the societies he reports on and heedless in the face of war and revolution, Jászberényi observes mothers, martyrs, soldiers, and lovers who must confront the extremes of contemporary experience. In spare, evocative prose, he combines fact and fiction to create a profoundly true portrait of the humanity behind the headlines. PRAISE FOR SÁNDOR JÁSZBERÉNYI ‘Unforgettable … an indispensable volume that helps us to remember and regard some of the greatest ruptures of our time.’ The Sydney Morning Herald ‘Extraordinary … Searingly truthful.’ The Independent

Download or read book Churchill’s Black Dog (Text Only) written by Anthony Storr and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Extremely engaging... A book full of good moments and humane insights.’ Alan Ryan, Observer

Download or read book Ziggurat written by Peter Balakian and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-09-15 with total page 87 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his first book of poems since his highly acclaimed June-tree, Peter Balakian continues to define himself as one of the most distinctive voices of his generation. Exploring history, self, and imagination, as well as his ongoing concerns with catastrophe and trauma, many of Balakian’s new poems wrestle with the aftermath and reverberations of 9/11. Whether reliving the building of the World Trade Towers in the inventive forty-three-section poem that anchors the book, walking the ruins of the Bosnian National Library in Sarajevo, meditating on Andy Warhol’s silk screens, or considering the confluence of music, language, and memory, Balakian continues his meditations on history, as well as on the harshness and beauty of contemporary life, that his readers have enjoyed over the years. In sensual, layered, and sometimes elliptical language, Balakian in Ziggurat explores absence, war, love, and art in a new age of American uncertainty.