Raffi, The Fool, translated by Donald Abcarian

ISBN 0-9535191-8-X

xiv + 223 pages, paper, map.

"While the prudent stand and ponder, the fool has already crossed the river."

Price: UKŁ12.00 / US$20.00 plus shipping.

To order contact books@gomidas.org or books@garodbooks.com

Cover photo: An ancient Armenian fortress across from Ishak Pasha Sarayi, a Kurdish prince's palace in the foothills of Mount Ararat, near Dogubayazit, where Raffi's The Fool is based. The photograph, taken around 1984, is from the Gomidas Institute photo archives.

"Armenia's foremost novelist is Raffi."
--Louise Nalbandian, author of The Armenian Revolutionary Movement (1963)

This historical novel has served as an "I have a dream" speech for generations of Armenians.

Set at the time of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877–78, The Fool provides invaluable glimpses into social conditions in western Armenia at the time. It portrays the development of an Armenian civil rights movement in Ottoman Turkey.

In the course of a romantic and hopeful novel, Raffi depicts in detail the way of life of Armenian peasants, their psychology, and the conditions under which they survived. He also portrays the central ideas that fuelled Armenian radical intellectuals of the day.

The Fool is an account of a heroic struggle to defend the ordinary people from the depredations and avarice of Ottoman authorities, neighboring peoples, and a corrupt Armenian establishment. It is the story of a revolutionary struggle to establish a just and civil society in Armenia.

The Fool is arguably the single most important work of literature dealing with the Armenian Question in Ottoman Turkey. Raffi depicts many of the actual figures and settings involved in the events of the time. The classical clarity and drama of its dialogue, the Armenian aphorisms that play such an important role throughout the story, the philosophical depth and moral passion embodied in it all make this novel a remarkable encounter with one of the greatest creative minds in modern Armenian history.

Click here for a report on the London launch of the book. The report includes descriptions of the book's main characters.

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.

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 the culmination of that process.