WATERTOWN — On January 23, author Victoria Atamian Waterman sat down for a discussion about her new novel, Who She Left Behind, at the Watertown Public Library, with award-winning journalist Stephen Kurkjian.
The event was jointly sponsored by the Armenian Museum of America.
The book is a historical novel that spans multiple generations, from the declining days of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey in 1915 to the Armenian communities in Rhode Island and Massachusetts during the 1990s. The book focuses on the women who became the pillars of reconstructed communities after the Armenian Genocide. It is based on stories from Waterman’s own family.
The auditorium at the Watertown Public Library was full, with audience members coming from as far away as Fitchburg and Worcester, as well as from Rhode Island. Attendees took part in a lively question and answer session about Waterman’s family past and her ideas for creating the novel and its characters. In addition, Kurkjian spoke about his family origins and a personal visit with his father to their ancestral home in old Armenia.
