Three books that put you in Armenia. One, Three Apples Fell from the Sky, is by a writer from Armenia and set there. The other two are wider picks: books by long-time residents and outsiders who know the place well.
Armenians have written in their own alphabet since the early fifth century, traditionally credited to the monk Mesrop Mashtots. Storytelling runs alongside it, notably the epic Daredevils of Sassoun, which was passed down orally before being written down. Modern Armenian has two standard forms: Eastern, used in Armenia, and Western, the form of many diaspora communities. Very little by writers in Armenia has reached English; the 1915 genocide and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict mark much of what is written about it.
Narine Abgaryan's Three Apples Fell from the Sky, translated from Russian, is set in a remote mountain village in the Caucasus highlands, where neighbours and folklore shape the community. Charles Downing's Armenian Folk-Tales and Fables retells village tales of kings, clever peasants and talking animals. In Passage to Ararat, Michael J. Arlen, an Armenian-American writer, travels to Soviet Armenia in the 1970s.
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Life in a remote mountain village in Armenia's Caucasus highlands, where neighbours, folklore and harsh terrain shape the community's rhythms.
By long-time residents and outsiders who know the place well, or folk tales, poetry and history with a strong feel for Armenia.
An Armenian-American writer travels to Soviet Armenia in the 1970s, weighing inherited memory of genocide against the living country.
Traditional village tales of kings, clever peasants and talking animals, showing Armenian oral storytelling and rural life.
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