Journey Through Genocide: Stories of Survivors and the Dead

Journalist Boudjikanian’s travelogue of his time spent in war-scarred nations is a slim book that nevertheless gets distracted on the way to the heart of its subject. Haunted by his family’s experience in the 1915 Armenian genocide, Boudjikanian visits nations that have experienced similar traumas, hoping to address questions about collective guilt, the prospects of forgiveness, and the dynamics of post-conflict reconciliation. His digressions about petty bureaucrats, shopping challenges in the developing world, and the quirks of substandard hotels seem out of place alongside stories from refugee camps housing survivors of Darfur’s killing fields and the Rwandan genocide. It’s only when the author flies to the land of his ancestors that the story truly comes alive. There, Boudjikanian confronts his fears as an Armenian walking the streets of Turkey, where mere mention of the genocide can result in arrest. As he reckons with his family’s history—his great-grandfather’s torture and murder and the family’s exile—he documents Turkey’s disturbing efforts to disappear evidence of Armenian existence. He also considers, by comparison, Germany’s honest and open approach to its shameful past. While this personal exploration of genocide asks important questions, it doesn’t devote the necessary space to fully answer them. (May)