Nancy Kricorian’s ‘The Burning Heart of the World’

On May 8, Nancy Kricorian discussed and read from her latest book, “The Burning Heart of the World” at Roeliff Jansen Community Library in Hillsdale, New York.

Kricorian was interviewed by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, the curator of mycology at The New York State Museum and author of “Forest Euphoria: On the Abounding Queerness of Nature,” to be published May 27, 2025.

Kricorian’s latest novel is fourth in a series of books focused on the post-genocide Armenian diaspora experience.

“I am to be a voice for my people,” stated Kricorian who grew up in an Armenian community in Watertown, Massachusetts alongside her grandmother, a genocide survivor.

April 2025 marked the 50th anniversary of the Lebanese Civil War and the 110th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. Published in April, Kaishian’s novel tells a story of an Armenian family from Beirut. Across four generations they have lived through the Lebanese Civil War, the Armenian genocide, and the 9/11 attack on New York City.

Of the book, Kricorian stated, “It is about women who struggle to cope and take care of their families in times of mass violence. It is also about the way that these traumas reside in the bodies of those that survive them.”

Sorting through the wreckage of mass violence and existential threats to sovereignty and territorial integrity, these stories provide a homeland to displaced people.

In 2014, Kricorian did an Armenian heritage trip. She expressed an intense feeling when looking at flowers on the side of the road or walking along the bridges, realizing that her grandmother had seen those same flowers and walked those same roads. She felt deeply rooted in place and history — yet also confronted by the reality of uprooting and displacement.

With each section of the book broken down by geographical regions, Kricorian worked to replicate this feeling with immersive and sensory writing that drops the reader amidst the flowers. The use of nature as a literary tool is woven throughout her writing, particularly through the recurring image of birds.

Throughout Armenian folklore, birds are often used as a symbol for the community’s ability to rebuild their nests elsewhere when their homes are destroyed and the flowers are no longer familiar.

The novel begins with a passage from Armenian musicologist Gomidas:

“My heart is like a house in ruins,

the beams in splinters, the pillars shaken.

Wild birds build their nest where my home once was.”

As a part of her research for this novel, Krikorian signed up for an intro to Arabic class. A portion of the class focused on Lebanese food in New York City. The chef who taught the course shared, “I came here like a wounded bird from a burning country.”

Kricorian used that line in her novel. Like a bird, she gathered pieces of insight and information from the dozens of Armenians she interviewed to cultivate this piece of art — a nest of words, experiences, traumas and laughter.

Olivia Geiger is an MFA student at Western Connecticut State Universiry and a lifelong resident of Lakeville.