“and there had been thousands upon thousands of them, without homes, without parents, some too young to remember their own names. and these were the lucky ones, the ones who had survived. land of armenians, land of orphans.”

war is tedious. it destroys all in its path, without a care for people or buildings, animals or plants, but it is tedious. it builds an eerie lull, a monotony of life that is interrupted by a sudden blast. war happens around you, and yet you must still go to work or go to school, you still share a drink with your friends on a balcony, you still bicker with your siblings and you still have to plan for the future, until the next blast makes that future feel uncertain yet again.

kricorian’s prose is emotional and deeply vivid. in her author notes and acknowledgments she spoke of visiting lebanon and seeing the streets for herself, and it certainly is reflected in the descriptions of the buildings, the bustle of people, the heat of the sun. vera is such a beautiful protagonist, a girl whose ptsd is elevated by what appears to be anxiety, and a war that haunts her half the world away. she was so deeply, deeply empathetic for all life, you couldn’t help but cherish every page with her. the family dynamic was lively, each relationship fleshed out so well in such a short span of pages.

“the burning heart of the world” is really a love letter to both lebanon and armenians who had to flee their homes and carve out a new space for themselves. it’s not directly about the armenian genocide, but it lingers, following the family for generations, all the way to new york nearly a hundred years later. war is monotonous, and slow, and destructive, and it never really leaves you behind.