Following the end of her journey to discovering her sexuality, a young queer woman embarks on another journey with her mother travelling across their native homeland of Armenia. In her debut poetry collection, Lillian Avedian tells the story of a woman learning to articulate her queer Armenian diasporic experience without fear.
'"Borders are fragile things'', reads a line in this wonderful collection by Lillian Avedian, captivating the heart and the senses through building a rich, moving landscape of diasporic identity. Avedian's words are steeped in imagery and allusion, at once embodied, universal, dialogic, self-referential, urgent, flowing and meta. Her story unique as a queer woman of the Armenian diaspora, has mystical and universal impact, as she writes, referencing Borges, 'it is my birthright to question the universe... Still I tire of sestets and extended metaphors, borrowed from the archives.' This is a book so teeming in heart and soul that the poetry practically beats through the pages, integrating stream of consciousness musical scores, playscripts and sculpted form. The words shimmer across the page and gloriously turn the pages for you.' Leila Lois
"Journey to Tatev is a love poem to the self and to the other, written along the trajectory of a single journey. These airy, deeply rhythmic poems encompass the multi-lingual voice of a migrant, coming-of-age, coming out, coming to terms with the past and future simultaneously. Words and notes dance across the page, engaging all of the senses in this vibrant and deeply moving collection.” Magdalena Ball, Compulsive Reader