Skylark Farm

by Antonia Arslan

Translated from the original Italian by Geoffrey Brock

A beautiful, wrenching debut chronicling the life of a family struggling for survival during the Armenian genocide in Turkey, in 1915.

After forty years in Venice, Yerwant is planning a long-awaited reunion with his family at their homestead in the Anatolian hills of Turkey. But as joyful preparations begin, Italy enters the Great War and closes its borders. At the same time, in Turkey, the Young Turks, determined to rid their nation of minorities, force his family on a brutal march of hunger and humiliation. We follow Yerwant's relatives as they strain to stay alive and as four children set out on a daring course to reach Yerwant—and safety—in Italy.

(From Publisher).

Antonia Arslan, who lives in Padua, has a degree in archaeology and was professor of modern and contemporary Italian literature at the University of Padua. This is her first novel.

Winner of the 2004 Italian Campiello prize, it is a moving debut novel inspired by the author's own family and their experiences of the Armenian genocide. Strong female characters and elegant prose suggest to nominate it for the Prize. The author is a well known university teacher and writer of literary essays. A film loosely based on the novel was directed by Taviani brothers.