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Dawn Anahid MacKeen is an award winning investigative journalist who spent nearly a decade on her grandfather's story. Previously she was a staff writer at Salon, Newsday, and Smart Money. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Elle, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. She lives in Southern California.
This bio was last updated on 02/11/2016. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
Why did you feel compelled to write this book?
Ever since I can remember, my mother has been telling me about what happened to her father. Still, the story was relayed in fragments, and I couldn't grasp how extraordinary it was until I could finally read it for myself as an adult. (This was thanks to a relative who translated his account, which was published in the sixties by a small press, from Armenian into English.) After reading it, I couldn't believe that he survived, and the ripple effect that my entire family was alive. My grandfather Stepan believed he lived in order to tell the world what happened, and shared his ordeal with my mother throughout her childhood. She then passed it onto me. This is our family's heirloom. Other people inherit fine china. I inherited this story, along with it the responsibility of retelling it.
Would you have survived this?
I ask myself this all the time. At each turn, what would I have done when faced with the same near-impossible odds? Would I have made the same decisions as my grandfather? Or would I have given up? My grandfather did everything to reunite with his family again, transforming himself constantly, and pushing his own physical and emotional limits. He ...
Chris Bohjalian is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-three books, including Hour of the Witch, The Red Lotus, Midwives, and The Flight Attendant, was the basis for the hit HBO Max television series starring ... (more)
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Born to a Swiss father and Tibetan mother, Yangzom Brauen is an actress, model, and political activist. She lives in both Los Angeles and Berlin and has appeared in a number of German and American films. She is also very ... (more)
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