Daughters of Memory

Daughters of Memory

Najarian, Peter.
Berkeley: City Miner Books, 1986, 157 pages. ISBN 0-933944-13-6.

"I always keep raisins in the house. They keep me alive. Ever since the desert I keep raisins in the house. In the desert all we had to eat was a handful of raisins a day. Without those raisins I wouldn't be alive now."

Description:
An unusual novel about women as a source of inspiration in society, interwoven with the commentary of three elderly Armenian women who survived the genocide. The three women converse like the Fates about life in America and the days gone by. The author also embarks on a personal search to understand more about the hardships experienced by his grandmother, a young peasant farmer who was killed in the Syrian desert. The author is enamored with the female figure, and nude sketches that he has drawn appear throughout the book.

Sample Chapters:

• The One Too Deep to be Recalled
• She Holds the Fort
• Rags
• Luck
• Raisins
• Loneliness and Gossip
• She Doesn't Give Up
• Turkish Songs and Armenian Muslims
• The Ghosts
• The Wound