Agop J. Hacikyan and Jean-Yves Soucy’s “A Summer Without Dawn”
Interlink Publishing, 2010
This sweeping work of historical fiction begins in moral anguish. The novel’s protagonist, Vartan Balian, cannot decide whether to flee with his family on the eve of the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
Ever since the 1915 Armenian Genocide, in which 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of the Ottomans, relations between Turkey and Armenia have been damaged beyond repair. Efforts in October 2009 to establish a historical commission in Turkey, modeled on South Africa’s truth commission, were widely considered to be doomed from the start. In the international arena, countries like the US, intent on preserving a critical Muslim ally in the Middle East, have refrained from using the term “genocide” so as not to antagonize Turkey. With fears of liability for war crimes paralyzing efforts in Turkey and abroad to document and tell the truth about the Armenian genocide, culture can play