The Armenian Institute’s next Book Club, led by our librarian and research advisor Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian, will feature Shahan Shahnour’s Retreat without Song, one of the most important literary works produced in the post-genocide Armenian diaspora. Shahnour’s novel first appeared in installments in the daily Haratch in Paris before its publication in 1929. Shahnour was an active member of a group of young diasporan writers in France called “Menk” (“We”). They strove to be the torchbearers of West Armenian literature in exile, while at the same time rejecting what had gone before, in the old country, the cradle of that same literature. Retreat without Song was a powerful manifestation of that literary ideology, provoking its readers through shock tactics and obliteration of taboos. Bedros, the young Armenian hero of the novel, a displaced survivor, finds himself in a predicament: unable to integrate in the French society and failing to find an equilibrium between French and Armenian cultures. Immediately after its publication the novel was attacked by sections of the diaspora, branding it as pornographic and a debasement of sacred Armenian values.
The Armenian original of the novel can be found by clicking this link:
The English translation will soon be available through the Armenian Institute website.
The ‘’doors’’ of the evening will open at 7:00 and we’ll start 7:30. You can join the meeting with these details:
Zoom Meeting ID 837-5517-8033
Join URL: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83755178033?pwd=cE8rK0NGTmd5UTA0bTZkNkNGYXExQT09
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