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Book Reviewed by:Moving between the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the 1990s, a story of passionate love, unspeakable horrors, incredible resilience, and the hidden stories that haunt a family.
When Orhan's brilliant and eccentric grandfather Kemal - a man who built a dynasty out of making kilim rugs - is found dead, submerged in a vat of dye, Orhan inherits the decades-old business. But Kemal's will raises more questions than it answers. He has left the family estate to a stranger thousands of miles away, an aging woman in an Armenian retirement home in Los Angeles. Her existence and secrecy about her past only deepen the mystery of why Orhan's grandfather willed his home in Turkey to an unknown woman rather than to his own son or grandson.
Left with only Kemal's ancient sketchbook and intent on righting this injustice, Orhan boards a plane to Los Angeles. There he will not only unearth the story that eighty-seven-year-old Seda so closely guards but discover that Seda's past now threatens to unravel his future. Her story, if told, has the power to undo the legacy upon which his family has been built.
Moving back and forth in time, between the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the 1990s, Orhan's Inheritance is a story of passionate love, unspeakable horrors, incredible resilience, and the hidden stories that can haunt a family for generations.
The story Seda eventually narrates to Orhan is both touching and appalling as she describes the way ethnic Armenians were treated by their Turkish neighbors and friends. One wouldn't expect a book that details a genocide to be trauma-free, but the author makes a conscious choice to soften the horror; she alerts readers early on, for example, to the fates which befall Seda's family members. This is both a strength and a weakness; on the one hand, it prevents this tragic tale from overwhelming sensitive readers, but on the other, it dilutes the emotional impact, lessening the shock value as scenes revealed earlier are relayed in more detail...continued
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(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
In Orhan's Inheritance, Orhan and his family are makers of kilim rugs, a type of carpet manufactured in Turkey using a technique referred to as "flatweave" (i.e., a rug that is woven rather than knotted). Dating back to at least 4th century China, this type of rug is common throughout Central Asia, and is known as a palas (Ukraine); liat (Caucasia); chilim (Syria and Lebanon) and gelim (Iran).
When talking about carpets, the most important terms to understand are "warp" and "weft." The warp, the series of vertical threads that are tautly stretched across a frame to form a sort of scaffolding for the rug, is generally made of cotton because the fiber is relatively strong and can be spun finer than most other materials.
The ...
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Chris Bohjalian, author of The Sandcastle Girls
Readers who were moved by the work of Carol Edgarian, Mark Mustian, and Nancy Kricorian will appreciate the historical authenticity and passion that Aline Ohanesian brings to this story of the Armenian Genocide. Orhan's Inheritance is heartfelt and sincere.
