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Raffi, Jalaleddin,
translated from Armenian by Donald Abcarian (London and Reading:
Taderon Press, 2005), ISBN
1-90-3656-62-1,
paperback, GB£6.00/US$10.00.
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As two ruthless
empires clashed under the false banner of religion, the unsuspecting
Armenian and Assyrian peasants of Albak were caught in a holocaust
of burning, looting and massacre. Engulfed in the inescapable impact
of these events Raffi set aside everything else to write his first
historical novel, Jalaleddin. With
sparing but vivid strokes he fashioned a stark, compact drama of
epic proportions, forging a story that at once crystallized the
emotions of the Armenian public, showed them the path of freedom,
and set their fate squarely before them. But with its call to self-defense
and its frontal assault on the clerical establishment of two major
religions Jalaleddin was not appreciated by everyone.
Immediately upon publication it set off a firestorm of controversy
and was bitterly attacked for its ideas in the conservative Armenian
press.
About the Author
Raffi (né Hakob Melik-Hakobian) was
born in 1835 in Bayajuk, near Salmas, in northwestern Persia. He
died in Tiflis in 1888. He was a prolific and popular writer who
contributed to Krikor Ardzrouni’s Tiflis-based liberal periodical,
Mshak (Cultivator). Among his other principal works of
fiction are Jalaleddin, Gharib Mshetsi (The exile from
Moush), Khachagoghi Hishatakarane (The diary of a
cross-stealer), Kaitzer (Sparks), Davit Bek, and
Samuel.
About the Translator
Donald Abcarian was born and raised
in Fresno, California, where his family was part of the extensive
Armenian-American community that has settled there since the turn of
the century. His earliest influences, including the Armenian
language, derived from that milieu. He graduated from the University
of California at Berkeley with a degree in philosophy, and has
pursued a lifelong interest in languages and world literature.
Having studied several European
languages over the years, Abcarian in 1996 took up the challenge of
learning to decipher the written language of his ancestors. This
translation is a result of that process. Click
here for an interview with Donald Abcarian.
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