Forgotten Fire

It is 1915 and Vahan Kendarian, the pampered youngest son of one of the most influential Armenian families in Turkey, is confident that his privileged world will always include the house he loves, the laughter of his brothers and sisters, a sense of belonging. But when his uncle disappears and his father is taken away, when two brothers are shot before his eyes in the family garden, VahanÕs world shatters. ÒBe steel,Ó his father had always said when something tested his sonÕs character. ÒSteel is made strong by fire.Ó What is about to occur is VahanÕs fire. In the next three weeks he will lose his home and know hunger and thirst for the first time. In the next three years he will become an orphan, a prisoner, a beggar, a servant, a stowaway in order to survive. He will meet and be befriended by the Horseshoer of Baskale, a Turkish governor famous for his practice of nailing horseshoes to the feet of his Armenian victims. He will live in a Turkish village, posing as a deaf mute and falling in love with the daughter of the only man in the village who guesses he is Armenian- and who is determined to kill him because of it. He will witness the murder and deportation of his neighbors and friends. And he will discover inside himself reserves of strength and courage he did not know existed. Based on the experiences of the authorÕs great-uncle during the Armenian Holocaust, Forgotten Fire is the story of one boyÕs search for the survivor inside himself. It is the story of a lost nationÑa powerful celebration of the resilience of the human spirit during the darkest of times.Bagdasarian, Adam is the author of 'Forgotten Fire', published 2000 under ISBN 9780789426277 and ISBN 0789426277.