The memoir by Alice Torian, My Childhood Without Spring: An Eyewitness Account of the Great Fire of Smyrna, was recently published in English. Her grandson, Peter Tourian, independently published the book as a tribute to her grandmother.
Available for the first time in English, this 50th anniversary edition recounts the trials and tribulations of Haiarpi “Alice” Torian, an eyewitness survivor of the Armenian Genocide and the Great Fire of Smyrna. Through vivid storytelling, the author weaves a tale of unconscionable suffering and anguish, but also of resilience and fortitude. Her memoir serves as a rarely captured firsthand account of these two infamous historical events. It is a must-read for all Armenians, genocide scholars, and anyone with an interest in more deeply appreciating the inhuman suffering of the Armenian people living in Turkey at that time.
Torian was born in Turkey in the early 1900s. A daughter of esteemed Armenian priest and lifelong educator, Dr. Hovhannes Nazarian, she bore eyewitness to the unspeakable pogroms and persecutions perpetrated upon the Armenian people during the Armenian Genocide and the Great Fire of Smyrna. Including this memoir, she authored four books in Armenian: Dapnepsak, Mankutwins Arants Garuni, Tag Metsn Kiwrosi and Vaghnjian Nuagner Ew Nergaghte. Immigrating to the United States in the mid-1970s, she passed away peacefully surrounded by family in 2001.
“To read Alice Torian’s memoir is to enter the brutal world of the Armenian Genocide, with all its savagery and heart-breaking injustice…. With every twist and turn of her family’s catastrophic story, we discover that somehow love can endure through the most inhumane chapters of history,” said Dr. Carla Garapedian of the Armenian Film Foundation.
To purchase the book, visit https://www.amazon.com/My-Childhood-Without-Spring-Eyewitness/dp/B0F9TK3J6Z
