As a child, I loved hearing my mother tell me the story of Anoush, a young princess whose father was the kindly king of a small but happy country far away in both time and place. The story was not only wonderfully entertaining but also instructive. A kindness of the king is repaid with treachery and murder, and a falsely accused Anoush is banished to the wilderness with her two children. After many hardships, and through magical intervention, Anoush and her children are reunited with their family, and at long last an evil wrong is righted. I never tired of hearing this fairy tale — Armenian, in origin, I believe — and as I grew older I came to realize that it is a fable for adults as well as children, for it speaks to the universal desire for fairness, justice and a happy ending. I have written down the story, as close as I could remember to the way my mother told it, in the belief that many others, young and old, would also enjoy "Anoush, the Daughter of King Shen."
Also, I have painted forty three pictures and taken five photographs to illustrate the story.