Carel Bertram

San Francisco State University

2023 Nikki Keddie Book Award Honorable Mention

A House in the Homeland: Armenian Pilgrimages to Places of Ancestral Memory

Stanford University Press 

Carel Bertram’s A House in the Homeland takes its readers on a journey with Armenians in the diaspora back to their ancestral homes in Anatolia, from which they were displaced in the upheavals of World War One. It tells a story of loss and reconnection, of the emotional weight of the past and of home itself, and of intergenerational trauma and mourning. It is thoughtful and sophisticated, but is above all else a beautiful, emotionally charged narrative that pulls at its readers’ heartstrings. It is a model ethnography that bears the imprint of many years of dedicated research.

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