Peter Balakian
The memoirist writes about his life during childhood and during the formative years of his early adulthood as he gradually becomes aware of what exactly his family's heritage is. As he discovers that they are immigrants and refugees, he learns about the prejudice in Turkey which existed against Armenians such as he. As he continues trying to learn more about the injustices committed against his people, he comes up against family members who do not want to talk about it because of personal trauma.
Nafina Aroosian
Nafina is Balakian's dearly beloved grandmother who cooks for him throughout his childhood and tells him whimsical stories from her youth, often with morals attached. As Balakian grows, his grandmother's stories begin to seem more and more intriguing because it is clear to him that she is doctoring the tales to remove traumatic events from the genocide. He asks her to please tell him the unadulterated truth, but she largely turns him away leaving him to connect the dots from what she did tell him in her stories to him as a child.
