An Armenian Sketchbook, by Vasily Grossman, translated by John and Elizabeth Chapman

Just a day or so ago I was chatting with Aussie author Debbie Robson about the joys of research and the type of research that I do for this blog…

An Armenian Sketchbook, a travel memoir of sorts by the great Russian writer Vasily Grossman, is an example of a book that demands a bit of research before I write anything about it here.  Before my research, I knew next to nothing about Armenia, not even its exact location.  All I knew before reading the book had to do with the Armenian Genocide: i.e. from my reading of Louis de Bernières Birds without Wings I learned that early in the 20th century the Ottomans in Turkey had killed more than a million Armenians.  I also knew that the Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk was recently prosecuted by authorities when he publicly acknowledged that this genocide had taken place because it is a criminal offence to do that in Turkey.