WASHINGTON POST, USA TODAY, BOSTON GLOBE PRAISE ‘THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS’
Asbarez
Tuesday, July 17th, 2012
The Sandcastle Girls
WASHINGTON-Praise for New York Times best-selling author Chris
Bohjalian’s latest epic, “The Sandcastle Girls,” continued, with The
Washington Post and USA Today and Boston Globe publishing powerful
reviews spotlighting the Armenian Genocide and Turkey’s ongoing denial
of this crime, reported the Armenian National Committee of America.
“Today’s reviews confirm the brilliance of Bohjalian’s masterful
literary presentation of the Armenian Genocide, and underscore
the vital role that he is playing in educating readers about this
crime, highlighting the ongoing human costs of Turkey’s denials, and
galvanizing a growing movement to end forever the cycle of genocide,”
said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “Bohjalian’s story truly
speaks to our hearts and our hopes. Let’s do all we can to make sure
that its impact is felt as widely as possible – among citizens and
Senators alike.”
Eugenia Zuckerman, in her review for The Washington Post, cites the
very real impact that the Armenian Genocide, and Turkey’s denial,
has on international relations today, and the role of books, like
‘The Sandcastle Girls’, in highlighting the truth about this crime.
“In some circles, controversy over the nature of this crime still
rages. Just this month, relations between France and Turkey were tested
again by President Francois Hollande’s commitment to making it illegal
to deny that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks was genocide,”
noted Zuckerman. “Bohjalian’s ‘The Sandcastle Girls’ may be a novel,
but, based on his family history, it is a valuable and powerful piece
of evidence pointing to the undeniable.”
The complete Washington Post review is available online at and was
published in the Tuesday, July 17th issue of the print edition.
Carol Memmott of USA Today wrote, “There is much heartbreak,
devastation and evil in ‘The Sandcastle Girls,’ and it’s exacerbated
by the denial by Turkey, even to this day, that the Armenians were
the victims of genocide. And Bohjalian makes a near-century-old
event come to life in a way that will make readers gasp with shock
that such a terrible event – Turkey’s determination to kill all the
Armenians in their country – is such a small part of our knowledge
of world history.”
The complete USA Today review is available online at and will be
published in the Tuesday, July 17th issue of the print edition.
Reviewing the book for the Boston Globe, Julie Wittes Schlack writes,
“Bohjalian succeeds in depicting the horror, without sentimentalizing
it, using photographs as one of the book’s major plot devices.”
The complete Boston Globe Review review is available online at and
was published in the Tuesday, July 17th issue of the print edition.
Last week, the July 23rd issue of People Magazine hit news-stands,
spotlighting “The Sandcastle Girls” in its “Great Reads – New in
Fiction” section and describing it as “an affecting tale set at the
time of a lesser-known Holocaust, 1915’s Armenian Genocide.”
Entertainment Weekly (EW) included the novel on their summer must-read
list. “Bohjalian (Midwives)-the grandson of Armenian survivors-pours
passion, pride, and sadness into his tale of ethnic destruction and
endurance,” noted EW’s Lisa Schwarzbaum.
These follow powerhouse literary reviews from Publisher’s Weekly,
Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal and Booklist – collectively offering
exceptional praise for both the author and the book. Read an exclusive
excerpt.
On Monday, The Sandcastle Girls took center stage with a special
Southern California kick-off luncheon with the author at the Universal
Sheraton Hotel, hosted by the ANC-Grassroots Film and the Arts
Committee, the Genocide Education Project, and Doubleday Books,
followed by an evening presentation held at Woodbury University
Fletcher Jones Auditorium.
Bohjalian will then be traveling to events in San Francisco, CA;
Watertown, MA; Warwick, RI; New Milford, NJ and Washington, DC
where his Capitol Hill debut is co-hosted by Congressional Armenian
Genocide Resolution lead sponsors, Representatives Robert Dold (R-IL)
and Adam Schiff (D-CA). Bohjalian will be meeting with Members of
Congress throughout the day on August 1st and then offering remarks
and signing books beginning at 6:00 p.m. at the Rayburn House Office
Building, Room B-369.
The complete roster of events across the country is available online.
In his 15th book, “The Sandcastle Girls,” Bohjalian brings us on
a very different kind of journey. The spellbinding tale travels
between Aleppo, Syria in 1915 and Bronxville, New York in 2012 –
a sweeping historical love story steeped in the author’s Armenian
heritage, making it his most personal novel to date. The novel is
set to hit book stores on Tuesday, July 17th.
Armenian Americans and interested readers are encouraged to pre-order
‘The Sandcastle Girls’ online at discounted prices from Amazon.com,
Barnes and Noble and Indibound or from their local book sellers.
To join the ANCA in helping put “The Sandcastle Girls” on the
Congressional summer reading list through a contribution to the ANCA
Endowment donate-a-book program.
From: Baghdasarian