The Magical Pine Ring, Margaret Bedrosian (hardcover)

Margaret Bedrosian’s pioneering interdisciplinary study examines the continuing effect of Armenian history on Armenian American writing. Using the work of ten Armenian American poets and fiction and non-fiction writers, she shows the continuing impact on Armenian Americans of cultural symbols, myths, and attitudes carried over from the Old World, and explores the ways in which two cultures meet, conflict, and become integrated in the imagination.

Through analysis of writers’ actual or fictionalized experience, The Magical Pine Ring provides an understanding of specific concerns as Armenians and as immigrants, the effect of their self-awareness as Armenians on their adaptation to America, the typical and stereotypical situations and personalities that emerged with time, and the key values and beliefs that endured even as names were changed and assimilation blurred physical and social demeanor. Bedrosian also explores the directions Armenian American writers have taken in portraying group history and the nature of their self-discovery as Armenian Americans.