WORLDWIDE READINGS MARK THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

15:36, 21 Apr 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

The planned extermination of Armenians started a century ago. To
remember all the voices lost, Armenian texts will be read worldwide
on Tuesday, according to Deutsche Welle.

The international literature festival berlin (ilb) and the Lepsiushaus
Potsdam launched a call for a worldwide reading of literary texts by
Armenian authors, as well as excerpts of Varujan Vosganian’s “The
Book of Whispers,” which describes the horrors of the deportations
and the extermination methods used by the Ottoman forces.

The initiators of the worldwide reading remind that these events were
well documented by several international sources. As stated in their
appeal, “As early as August 1915, ‘The New York Times’ reported on
a methodically planned program of ethnic cleansing and extermination
which was unprecedented in history up to that time. The German Reich’s
government, which was allied to the Ottoman Empire, reached the same
conclusions without undertaking anything against what was happening.”

More than 300 authors from all over the world are supporting this
initiative, among them the laureates for the Nobel Prize for Literature
Mario Vargas Llosa, Herta Muller, Elfriede Jelinek, Orhan Pamuk and
John M. Coetzee.

On Tuesday April 21, over a hundred literary events will be held
in more than 30 countries. No Turkish event has been announced. The
complete list of participants can be found on the initiative’s website