In Stateless, Chahinian offers a rich exploration of Western Armenian literary history in the wake of the 1915 genocide that led to the dispersion of Armenians across Europe, North America, and beyond. Chahinian highlights two specific time periods—post-WWI Paris and post-WWII Beirut—to trace the ways in which literature developed in each diaspora community. In Paris, a literary movement known as Menk addressed the horrors Armenians experienced and focused on creating a new literary aesthetic centered on belonging while in exile. In Beirut, Chahinian shows how the literature was...

Stateless: The Politics of the Armenian Language in Exile focuses on two centers of Western Armenian literary production following the Armenian genocide to examine the intersection of violence and art, displacement and language vitality. In looking at the work of a post WWI Paris-based, short-lived transnational literary movement called Menk [We], it explores how the politically violent origins of dispersion informed the aesthetic development of a new literature and the articulation of literary belonging in exile. In looking at the post WWII activities and publications of the Writers’...