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Start giftingLibretto for the Desert
Dedicated to the Victims of War and Genocide
Narrator
Beata Pozniak
This audiobook uses AI narration.
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Translator
Shushan Avagyan
Length
2 hours 18 minutes
Language
English
In A Libretto for the Desert, Sona Van’s subject is the Armenian genocide, also known as the Great Catastrophe. Van’s parents and grandparents were driven into exile due to this horrific event. Her poems reflect a personal connection to this history as well as the universality of loss, persecution, and intolerance.
Sona Van (Sona Ter-Hovhannisyan) is a poet and essayist who was born in Yerevan, Armenia. Her books of poetry have been translated into more than seventeen languages. She is the recipient of many awards including the gold medal from Armenia’s Ministry of Culture, a Homer-the European Medal of Poetry and Art, the Ianicus Literary Prize and in 2019 she was the recipient of the 1573 International Poetry Prize in China. In the US, she received many recognitions including the Woman In Literature Award from the California Senate.
Beata Poźniak, known for playing Marina Oswald in Oscar nominated JFK, has narrated bestsellers The Winter Palace: A Novel of Catherine the Great and Illuminae, which received an Audie Award. The Tsar of Love and Techno was selected in the Top 5 Best Audiobooks of the Year by the Washington Post. She received an Earphones Award for narrating Nobel Prize–winning Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead and another Earphones Award for The Light in Hidden Places, which followed a Voice Arts Award Nomination for Libretto for the Desert: Poetry Dedicated for the Victims of Genocide and War.
Reviews
“This is music to be felt like the dry wind of the desert, felt on the skin as if a bullet had just skimmed by, barely missing the beating heart.”
“Beata Pozniak’s accented, dramatic narration conjures a faraway desert land. Sona Van’s abstract meditation on the Armenian genocide of 1915-1917 is dedicated to the victims of all wars and atrocities. Plumbing the depths of pain, Pozniak’s narration is intense, breathy, and emotional, and is augmented by background sounds of desert winds and distant, echoing Middle Eastern music. Pozniak’s artful pauses, varied tempo, and voice full of emotion convey the weight of the horrific events of the genocide and their effects on individuals. The work employs the Armenian genocide as its focus but also touches upon other wars and suffering, including the more recent events in Iraq.”
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