The Web of Hope: The Memoirs of George Kooshian

The Web of Hope is a first-hand, day-to-day account of a young man who went into the face of genocide armed only with pencil and paper. From the notes he recorded during the death marches and massacres in 1915, a chilling picture of the Armenian Genocide takes shape. Of two thousand deportees in his caravan to the Syrian desert, George Kooshian was among the very few to escape and the only one able to bear witness. This stunning autobiography offers an everyday look at the destroyed and forever lost Armenian life in the Ottoman Empire before 1915, the unspeakable cruelty and deprivations during the deportation, the glimmer of hope following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire by the Allied Powers in 1918, the renewed persecutions in the 1920s and emigration to the United States of America and ultimately to Pasadena, California. This volume is an important addition to the genre of memoir literature by genocide survivors, especially in the face of adamant and repressive state denial of the crime. It is a must-read for persons with an interest in Armenian and Near Eastern history, immigration studies, human rights, and ethical themes centered around the human spirit tested by the most crushing experiences, from a man who not only survived but thrived through faith.

- Richard Hovannisian, Armenian Educational Foundation Professor Emeritus of Modern Armenian History, University of California, Los Angeles