PRESS RELEASE
USC’s Information Services Division
Doheny Memorial Library
3550 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0183
Contact: Tyson Gaskill
Tel: 213-740-2070
Fax: 213-740-2448
E-mail: gaskill@usc.edu
Web:

Discussion and Book Signing with Chronicler of Armenian Genocide

LOS ANGELES – The University of Southern California’s Doheny Memorial
Library will host a reception and book signing on Friday, November 12,
at 11 a.m., with Peter Balakian, author of the recent bestselling book
“The Burning Tigris.” The reception, sponsored by the USC Institute of
Armenian Studies and the USC Armenian Student Association, is free and
open to the public.

Balakian grew up in an affluent New Jersey suburb. His grandmother, who
played a major role in his upbringing, often told him stories. Mixed
among the familiar Mother Goose and Grimm yarns, however, were strange
and often disturbing tales of her youth in Armenia – all cloaked in
metaphor and symbolism.

The mysteries from his family’s past remained so until years later when
Balakian finally pieced together their meaning. The terrible event that
his grandmother had fallen victim to was the Ottoman Turk government’s
extermination of more than one million Armenians in 1915.

Balakian has researched and written extensively about the atrocities
that befell Armenians during World War I.

The Burning Tigris gives a detailed history of the events – the first
modern genocide of the 20th century – and recounts the vast outpouring
of humanitarian feelings generated in America. The New York Times Book
Review called the book a `fascinating and affecting memoir.’

Balakian is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the
Humanities at Colgate University, where he teaches American literature,
creative writing and a course on the Armenian genocide and the
Holocaust. He is director of the university’s new Center for the Study
of Ethics and World Societies.

Balakian has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Anahit Literary
Prize and the New Jersey Council for the Humanities Book Prize.

The book signing and reception are held in conjunction with `They Shall
Not Perish: Relief Efforts of the Near East Foundation, 1915-1930,’ an
exhibition that documents through photographs, letters, posters, books,
and rare artifacts a relief effort for victims of the genocide.

The exhibition continues in the ground floor rotunda of Doheny Library
through Sunday, January 30, 2005; admission is free.