It is often one’s dream to be able to write and publish a book. For my aunt, Katia Tavitian Karageuzian, that dream came true about over a year ago. In her historical novel, Forbidden Homeland: Story of a Diasporan, she elaborates through extensive details on her process of coming to America during the war in the Middle East. While getting her Bachelor’s at California State University, Northridge, she made an innocent comment while talking with her friends about where they were from. Soon, they realized they all came from the same province, Malatya, as her dad’s side of the family. This small, accidental comment allowed her to discover extended relatives she had never heard of or met before. With this information, Karageuzian was able to learn more about her missing relatives and their personal stories about the Armenian Genocide. Her passion for history grew as she kept finding more and more details about the genocide and her displaced relatives. Also, throughout that discovery, she was able to apply her knowledge to the recent events in Artsakh. When the border conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan started in May of 2021, the Armenians were faced with constant inhumane attacks by the Azeris all because they wanted the land of Artsakh. These individual pieces of broad and personal history were able to uncover hidden truths and connect the past with the present.
With all these astounding discoveries, Katia Tavitian Karageuzian was able to win multiple awards for her very first book, including the 2023 Golden Literary Titan award. When asked about some of the important ideas she wanted to include in her book, she replied, “It was important to share what happened to my family and my homeland over a hundred years ago in order to explain what is happening in Artsakh (Karabakh) today.” Karageuzian also stated in her last point that “the Armenian story is part of the Human Story. We are all connected.” She has gone on multiple book tours across California and has started to go out of state, such as places like Las Vegas. Her most recent one was in Orange County, featuring Judge Gassia Apkarian, the honorary Supreme Court Justice of Orange County. Overall, the long nights and sacrifice she had to make to write this book was all worth it in the end, with hundreds of sales and growing knowledge of the Armenian people.
In my opinion, it is very important to speak on historic incidents that are often not brought attention to in order to not have those same conflicts repeat again in the future. When asked if learning about history is important or not, Fara Ebrahimi (11) states, “Learning about history gives us a better understanding of how the world was shaped and how it functions today.”
