In this humorous, learned, and moving memoir, Vartan Gregorian recounts his journey from an impoverished childhood as a Christian Armenian in Muslim Tabriz to cultured citizen of the world.
Gregorian's odyssey begins in an obscure poor quarter of a provincial city (thought by some to be the location of the Garden of Eden). Childhood centered on his brilliant, beloved, illiterate grandmother who taught him so much, the beauty of Church, school, American movies, and the larger world he read about in his borrowed books. From there, he continued on to a Beirut lycee, Stanford University, and...