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

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

Author Nancy Kricorian reads from her book “The Burning Heart of the World” at Roeliff Jansen Library on May 8.

Olivia Geiger

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.

Latest News

State intervenes in sale of Torrington Transfer Station

The entrance to Torrington Transfer Station.

Photo by Jennifer Almquist

TORRINGTON — Municipalities holding out for a public solid waste solution in the Northwest Corner have new hope.

An amendment to House Bill No. 7287, known as the Implementor Bill, signed by Governor Ned Lamont, has put the $3.25 million sale of the Torrington Transfer Station to USA Waste & Recycling on hold.

Keep ReadingShow less
Juneteenth and Mumbet’s legacy
Sheffield resident, singer Wanda Houston will play Mumbet in "1781" on June 19 at 7 p.m. at The Center on Main, Falls Village.
Jeffery Serratt

In August of 1781, after spending thirty years as an enslaved woman in the household of Colonel John Ashley in Sheffield, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Freeman, also known as Mumbet, was the first enslaved person to sue for her freedom in court. At the time of her trial there were 5,000 enslaved people in the state. MumBet’s legal victory set a precedent for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1790, the first in the nation. She took the name Elizabeth Freeman.

Local playwrights Lonnie Carter and Linda Rossi will tell her story in a staged reading of “1781” to celebrate Juneteenth, ay 7 p.m. at The Center on Main in Falls Village, Connecticut.Singer Wanda Houston will play MumBet, joined by actors Chantell McCulloch, Tarik Shah, Kim Canning, Sherie Berk, Howard Platt, Gloria Parker and Ruby Cameron Miller. Musical composer Donald Sosin added, “MumBet is an American hero whose story deserves to be known much more widely.”

Keep ReadingShow less
A sweet collaboration with students in Torrington

The new mural painted by students at Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut.

Photo by Kristy Barto, owner of The Nutmeg Fudge Company

Thanks to a unique collaboration between The Nutmeg Fudge Company, local artist Gerald Incandela, and Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut a mural — designed and painted entirely by students — now graces the interior of the fudge company.

The Nutmeg Fudge Company owner Kristy Barto was looking to brighten her party space with a mural that celebrated both old and new Torrington. She worked with school board member Susan Cook and Incandela to reach out to the Academy’s art teacher, Rachael Martinelli.

Keep ReadingShow less