The Story of a Woman Who Survived the Armenian Genocide is Translated into Turkish

The Armenian publishing house "Aras" based in Istanbul has translated and published the book "The Lioness' Legacy" by Armenian-American Arlen Voski Avagyan from English to Turkish. The translator is Meral Camcın and the editor is the publisher’s director, Robert Koçtaş.

The "Lioness" refers to the author’s maternal grandmother, Elmas Tutuyan, who escaped the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and reached the United States. Many years ago, in 1915, she recounted the details of her life-and-death struggle to her granddaughter, Arlen, entrusting her with the task of telling her story to the world. However, the author did not dare to share this sad chapter of her family’s history for many years, fearing further alienation in an already foreign American society.

It was only decades later, when the author felt that her grandmother’s and her own life stories had finally merged, that Arlen began to write down and publish Elmas Tutuyan's story. The book was first published in English in 1992.

“When ‘The Lioness’ Legacy’ was published in 1992, I finally fulfilled my maternal grandmother’s wish to tell her story to the world. Now, as her story is being told in the country where she was born and raised her children, I feel immense admiration and joy. Elmas’s story returns to its homeland through this book,” the author recounts.

It should be noted that historian Arlen Voski Avagyan was born in 1939. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Art History in 1961 and completed her Master's at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1975. In 2001, she founded and led the Social Research Department on Women at the same university. Avagyan’s works are dedicated to women's issues.